Throughout my 40 years of photography I never thought that I would ever own a 500mm super telephoto lens, now for around the last 12 months I have been the proud owner of the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 lens. This lens is an excellent product and prior to the release of the lens photographers had to outlay around $10,000 for a lens of this focal length. Now this lens can be had for less than $2,000.
If you use one of the Nikon DX crop cameras, this lens will give an effective focal length of 300-750mm. The lens can even be used with the Nikon TC-14E III teleconverter to give an effective focal length of 280-700mm with the Nikon FX cameras with very little loss in image quality. Using a cropped DX camera (1.5x crop) with the TC-14E III teleconverter will give an amazing effective focal length of 420-1050mm. At these focal lengths the lens will perform with excellent image quality.
Bird photography has always been one of my main interests in photography in recent years and prior to getting the 500mm lens, I had great difficulty with the 300mm f/4 lens in getting the quality of close up bird images that I longed for and am now obtaining with the 200-500mm lens. If you are interested in animal or bird photography go and purchase this wonderful lens.
All the images below have been captured with the Nikon D810 camera and using a Gitzo GM5561T monopod using the Nikon 200-500mm lens.
The above Noisy Friar Bird was captured around our home and if you have a bird attracting garden then you cam have a wonderful area for bird photography with such a lens.
The brightly coloured Rainbow Lorikeets (below) are always excellent for a photograph especially when on a brilliantly coloured red flower like the bottle brush in this image. This image is also captured from our garden looking into the neighbour’s property, good to keep friendly with your neighbours.
The pied Butcher Bird was captured on a recent road trip around the scenic rim here in my home State Queensland. It is always nice to find birds which are different to your local home birds.
The brown honeyeater below is a super active bird and difficult to photograph due to its rapid movements.
The equipment I use and recommend for my photography is as follows:
