Nikon 300mm AF-S f4 Prime

wezza13 · Jul 27, 2015

Hi all,

I'm hiring the Nikon AF-S 300mm F4 lens this coming weekend, along with a 1.7 teleconverter.

I currently have the Tamron 150-600mm at the moment for birding.

Just wondering what I can expect from this lens and TC combo? Does anyone have the two lenses? What are your thoughts?

I'm looking forward to trying it out.

With the 300mm prime, is it forgiving for cropping? Or is it best to fill the frame with the subject, in camera? My only experience with a prime is the 50mm 1.8 G.

I will be using them on a Nikon D600. I may still have my D7100 by the weekend but looks like I may be selling it this week.

All thoughts welcome

Cheers,
Wez

wezza13 · Jul 28, 2015

Hmm I'm beginning to think that I've hired a lens with a focal length that's not quite long enough?

Hope I haven't wasted my money, time will tell this weekend - if the weather stays nice!

Braineack · Jul 28, 2015

300mm doesnt quite have the reach as your 600mm.

guess youll have to work at getting closer, but it should resolve better and have good cropping power.

astroNikon · Jul 28, 2015

I don't have the AF-S 300/4 but I have the 300/4 AF (the old screw focus model) and use it with a d7000 and mostly a d600. I also have the Tamzooka 150-600.
and a older model 2.0TC.

But the first thing you will notice is MASS and weight. The 300 being much smaller.
of course, you loose the Zoom ability too.

But I love the IQ of the 300.
I don't use the TC with it as I found I lost too much IQ versus just cropping more.

300 just doesn't seem long enough for nature wildlife but fine in certain situations. Such as at a "wildlife" preserve for birds where you can get much closer then in general.
I haven't done the birding that I've wanted to do but for me I still have both and will probably keep both in the foreseeable future.

You'll just have to do some TC tests of the 300 * 1.7 vs Tamron at 510mm vs 300 + cropping. Pick a detailed brick wall - they don't fly away as often as birds do so you can redo tests.

Mr.Photo · Jul 28, 2015

I have an old Tokina AT-X 300mm f/4 AF that I use with my Kenko Pro DGX 300 1.4x teleconverter with pretty good results. With the TC you will want to attempt to fill the frame as much as possible. With my 1.4 I can crop only about 25% of the image before I see an undesirable reduction in image quality. I would imagine that with the 1.7x it may be even so. Another thing I've noticed is that while my 300 f/4 is good and sharp wide open, with the TC on shooting wide open at 5.6 (while not horrible) isn't quite as nice as using just the straight 300mm. Stopping down to around 7.1-8 sharpens things right back up nicely, but you need to be in some good light or really crank your ISO.

Here's a couple of images I took at an airshow this past May using the 300mm and 1.4x TC.

1. This is uncropped, shot wide open at 5.6. The plane was moving about 400 knots less than a football field away turning towards me.

2. This shot was taken in Shutter Priority mode so that I could set my shutter speed to 1/200 sec to get the prop blur. This of course resulted in the lens stopping down to f/20 at ISO 100. This shot is actually cropped about 50% of the original image as the warbirds were flying much farther away from the crowd for some reason.

Derrel · Jul 28, 2015

I only own the 300/4 AFS and 1.4x TC--I have not tried the newer 1.7x TC Nikon makes. I shoot the 300 mostly with no TC, and it is a very sharp lens, with excellent optics. It's pretty good with the 1.4x converter added. I have not shot the Tamron zoom, but I would expect the 300 prime lens to be pretty good with the 1.7x added for a 510mm equivalent. As I understand it, at 500mm or so, the Tamron is starting to lose a slight bit of its sharpness, and it needs to be stopped down to f/8 at the longer range to maintain a really good image quality level, so it sounds a lot like a wash to me. I think you'll probably need to stop the 300 + 1.7x down one f/stop or so to get its best performance.

The one thing the 300/4 AF-S does offer is exceptionally close minimum focusing distance--it is one of THE closest-focusing telephoto 300's ever made.

coastalconn · Jul 28, 2015

I have had both.. My take is this... 300 F4 at F5 naked beats the Tamron at 300 F5. With 1.4x TC it is a wash. With the 1.7x the Tamron wins easily at F8. For birding, you are going backwards with a D600 and a 300 F4. The Tamron is very good on the D600. In order to get your birds to shine with the D600, you will need to fill the frame.

wezza13 · Jul 30, 2015

Thank you all for your detailed replies.

The only reason I went for the 1.7 over the 1.4 was that they were both the same price to hire. To be honest, I didn't even think that maybe their quality was different. I just assumed they'd be as good as each other, seeing as they're both made by Nikon. So I went for the extra reach.

I've got no problem in trying to get closer to the wildlife, so I will try my best to fill the frame.

I do love the Tammy, it's definitely my favourite lens that I have. Apparently, the AF is supposedly quicker on the 300mm f4. Is that right?

I'm selling my D7100 as, when I can get out to shoot due to work, I'm nearly always in low-light. The picture quality with the ISO at around (or at least) 1600 isn't the best. I had a play with a D600 and was so impressed with the low-light capabilities, I grabbed a bargain off of ebay. Although the seller never had any problems with the oil issue (hmm really?

), it's just started showing up. So I may have to put it in for repair next week.

Also, forgive my ignorance of your expression (being from England!), when you both say "it's a wash", I imagine you mean they are the same?

Many thanks,
Wez

Braineack · Jul 30, 2015

wezza13 said:
Also, forgive my ignorance of your expression (being from England!), when you both say "it's a wash", I imagine you mean they are the same?

correct.

The D600 has an amazing sensor that captures details very well and has pretty decent cropping power.