More expensive zoom question

[exemplaria]

Options One:

Buy the new 800mm f/5.6 lens from Nikon:

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR

Cost $17,900.

Option Two:

Buy the 80-400 zoom for $1,600 and a used car for $10,000 and just drive closer to whatever I'm trying to shoot.

Cost: $11,600.

Joke was stolen from Nikon Rumors.

 

[Mike_E]

Or you could get a 400mm f2.8, a 1.7 TC-E and a D800 and have 400mm f2.8 FF, 600mm f2.8 cropped to 15+ Mpix, 680mm f5.6 FF and 1020mm f5.6 cropped to 15+ Mpix for around $12,500






and get a cheaper car.

 

[matthewo]

or you could get a 300mm 2.8 and have a lighter cheaper setup then both, get a tc20e iii teleconverter and have 600mm @ 5.6

 

[O'Rork]

When mounting a 300 2.8 & tc20e iii, will the displayed aperture be correct or do you have to do the math to figure out the actual aperture?

 

[Mike_E]

A TC-E allows auto focus and everything else.

A 2X converter starts getting soft though which is why I specified a 1.7.

 

[fokker]

I notice they say it VR rated for 4 stops of shake reduction - by my math that would make it hand-holdable at 1/50s using the 1/focal length rule. That's pretty impressive, I struggle to get sharp shots at 1/50 at 300mm on my canon 70-300 IS lens...

 

[fokker]

Just looking at the page for that 800mm lens, wouldn't say it looks very sharp (to me at least) at all. and yeah, I know it's at 800mm, but still for that price I'd expect much sharper than this:

 

[Patrice]

This is likely to be popular with the birding crowd, cricket (the sport), surfing, olympics....

In terms of expense, it's not out of line when compared to a well corrected top of the line triplet refractor of that aperture.

 

[djacobox372]

I notice they say it VR rated for 4 stops of shake reduction - by my math that would make it hand-holdable at 1/50s using the 1/focal length rule. That's pretty impressive, I struggle to get sharp shots at 1/50 at 300mm on my canon 70-300 IS lens...

extremely heavy lenses don't vibrate much so I doubt the vr is that useful. Especially considering that u need at least a monopod to shoot that lens.

I have a 600mm f5.6 and I doubt vr would give me much help. I can shoot it on a monopod down to 1/50 and get sharp photos.