best nikon lense for aniaml shoots?

[southstar066]

any suggestions?

[nickb]

Can you give some more information. What types of animals? In zoos or in the wild? what camera body? etc.

[IPT]

yeah, need more info...

In general the faster and longer you have the better you are. Gets expensive real quick. When shooting wildlife on a reasonable budget there are a lot of compramises.

What I ended up settling for and has generally served me well is a 300mm f4 lens with a 1.4x tele converter. Gives me a reasonably fast 300mm that doesn't weigh a ton, and a sort of slow F5.6 420mm. I recently aquired/permently borrowed a 300m f2.8 and because of it size it rarely gets used.

So much of it "depends", give us more info.

[southstar066]

it would be primarily zoo. my camera is the nikon D60

[IPT]

I'm not so familiar with the nikon lenses, but, I would think for a zoo environment a 300mm would be good. Assuming animals will vary in their distance so a zoom may even have a place here. Maybe someone with more Nikon experience will chime in.

[nickb]

You might want to look at the Nikon 70-300mm VR. It has very good reviews, a bit soft at 300mm but is reasonably priced for the quality. The VR version auto-focuses on the D60 too.

[jthao]

the best lense for what you wanna do is probably the 70-200 f2.8 VR

[bmwardo]

second the 70-200 f2.8 VR

[maroun.c]

70-300 Vr would be the best affordabl price and if you can afford the 70-200 2.8 that can get any better.
a TC would work fine and not slow down your lense or your focusing a lot on a 70-200 VR
still I get very good results with my 70-300 VR at zoos.

[TitusvileSurfer]

I don't have a Nikon but I do have a 70-200 f/2.8 IS (IS=VR). With lesser focal length lenses, I don't miss IS at all. between 135mm and 200mm it starts to really come in handy though.

[maroun.c]

You can also consider the 80-200 2.8 which is a bit old now but still a very fine lense. doesn't have VR and focuses maybe a bit slower than the 70-200 VR but for around 800 usd that is a fine lense to use. even with a TC It'll still be faster than a 70-300 VR and should still give you sharper images I guess.

[IPT]

If you can swing the 70-200 F2.8 and a tele converter THAT is the way to go (IMO). It gives you speed, tele, and a small aperature for making fences and bars disappear. My guess is the 3000mm is an f4 (?). If so, you'll have the smae with the f2.8 and a tele (if it's like Canon) but you will be able to use f2.8 if you want (low light, animal far away and bars in front you want to "go away").

[TitusvileSurfer]

I think the 70-300 is a f/4-5.6 which would be a full stop slower wide open.

[nickb]

If you can afford it, then the 70-200 VR would be great. But, it costs around $1,600 vs $550 for the 70-300VR. The 70-200 is a faster lens with higher quality, but you pay for the pluses. It is also a bigger/heavier lens. The 'best' solution might depend on your budget.

[Toddrtrex]

I had the D60 and use the AF-S DX VR 55-200MM F/4-5.6G lens. It might not be the best one, but I am pleased with it. Used it a lot on my hiking trip over the summer, and was able to get some really good animal shots with it -- at least I think they are good.

[Absolute Reef]

another vote for 70-200 f/2.8 VR.
with te-14E II teleconverter for extra reach.

I and hope you mean wild animals in the wild, not wild animals in your tank.
70-200 is very difficult for shooting fishes...it requires some distance and your tank has to be very very well lid to increase shutter speed without the need of raising ISO.

[ahuxman58]

All depends on how much you wanna spend, and how much reach and quality you want. Nikon glass is not cheap any good glass is not cheap for that matter.

[ahuxman58]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14160872#post14160872 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Absolute Reef
[B]another vote for 70-200 f/2.8 VR.
with te-14E II teleconverter for extra reach.


The 1.4 Extender will not give that much more reach specially on a 70-200 will only give you 280MM at the high end. When doing wildlife reach is everything The best option is 500MM or more is what you need if your serious about wildlife photography but thats where the big bucks come in. With a 1.4 Extender you get 700MM and only lose one F stop IQ still is preserved quite well.

[maroun.c]

70-200 is very difficult for shooting fishes

He could still use the 70-110 range of it for fish closeups which should be fine.

...it requires some distance and your tank has to be very very well lid to increase shutter speed without the need of raising ISO

If the minimum focusing distance is not very big it should not have any limitations over other lenses when used at the wide side as it's a fix 2.8 and sharp enough to be used at 2.8. Depending on your camera performance in high Iso I don't think it would be very hard to achieve 1/50 -1/70 shutter speed at an Iso of 500-640 on most tanks.remember that this lense has VR which would allow you to shoot at 4 times slower speeds and get away with motion so when shooting even at 200 focal distance a sharp image is achivable only at 1/50 or even slower. I get away with shots at much slower than that with my 18-200 Vr which is far from the 70-200. one problem I see is use of flash as when you're far away it will reflect off the glass. and also lense weight. In the end he did mention that it's for zoo animals.


The 1.4 Extender will not give that much more reach specially on a 70-200 will only give you 280MM

Add to that the crop factor of Nikon as he's shooting crop body not a full frame then you endup with a 420. it will eatup one stop or maybe less light but still it'll be faster than a 500mm F4. Don't know if you're mentioning the 500mm Vr by Nikon or another one? but the 500 mm VR is an 8000 USd worth lens so way overkill for someone with a D 60 wanting to shoot animals in a zoo ?

[ahuxman58]

My Bad , thought he meant wildlife.... not caged life.

[Absolute Reef]

points taken guys, appreciate that.

I say it's just a matter of preference. I think 70-200 vr alone produces exceptional images and light enough to carry around, expensive but yet affordable. If you just go to the zoo to see some captive wild animals...I believe you will be just fine for any given situation. On the other hand, if you are going to have a safari trip in africa or any other part of the world, say that you are really going in to the wild, then you need an extra reach. If that was the question for this thread, my answer would have been different. Nikkor 400 f/2, or even 600 f/4 would really be great choices. You might as well need a big tripod that mounted to the safari truck too.

I am not really a big fan of tele-converter or any other lens adaptor. I just like my lenses the way they are. Sacrifice "one thing" to get "another thing",....well, that "other thing" should be something worth it (better images) or else I would rather stay with that "one thing" I already have. I don't think I would want to carry anything bigger or heavier than 70-200 (umm...may be 2,900g 200 f/2 would be my last choice) to go to the zoo with my kids, it's just not fun.


D300 + 70-200 VR --- focal length 110 @ f/2.8 , 1/640 shutter speed. ISO:auto, picture is jpg converted from nef file, non-crop , non-post process.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x250/Absolute_Reef/zoo1.jpg