Nikon 200-500mm/f5.6 E AF-S VR Lens Early Impressions

The Chinese brand Neewer offers a $19 replacement tripod foot for the 70-200 2.8 VR-2. I have it and I don't think it is

significantly less well made or serviceable than Kirk's $140 alternative. I hope Neewer will offer a tripod replacement for

the 200-500 as well. I think there is really almost nothing to the design and manufacturer of a replacement tripod collar or foot. I am guessing real cost of a replacement tripod collar is in the 10-30 dollar range, and some lesser known brand is bound to undercut the seriously inflated prices from the likes of Kirk.

<p>I agree with Shun that there seems to be a consensus regarding sharpness, it is a sharp lens.</p>

<p>Great, but what about AF speed? I have not seen many comments about that other than it beeing an f5.6 lens. How long is the throw from infinity to its minimum focus distance, would you say it hunts a lot or snap into focus?</p>

<p>Chuck, it is certainly true that there are many brands of aftermarket collars for lenses, and you can choose which you prefer. Kirk was a pioneer in providing this type of products and they have built a certain reputation, which in turns means they get a lot of orders even at the high prices that their products cost. (I am not in any way affiliated with Kirk obviously.) If you want to save money you can order from some Chinese manufacturer at a fraction of the cost. However, it appears Kirk has already made a set of products for this lens which has been available for a short time. I suspect it will take longer for the cheaper variants to appear on the market.</p>

<p>I haven't used one of the front supports with rollers yet but I think the concept is a good one as it may allow some pressure to be applied at the point of contact between the rollers and the lens barrel, whereas a sliding surface of contact which Kirk has used before would possibly leave marks if it is pressed against the barrel. I always felt that in the 80-400 AF-S collar the front contact is not fully secure and leaves some possibility of vibration (although it is an improvement over the Nikon collar). Also the distance between front and rear supports was quite short in the 80-400 Kirk collar. RRS has offered a long lens support package which includes adjustable second support with rollers but it takes quite a bit of space (it is designed for <em>long</em> lenses). Kirk's new solution appears quite compact and could be left on the lens at all times (if desired), or taken off for hand-held use. This is why I like it. However, obviously the complexity adds to the cost of the product. For me, if I buy the 200-500, I would want to use it regularly for winter landscape photography and I believe the front support with this kind of a design (with wider span than in previous Kirk solutions and adjustable height of the roller component, allowing the rig to make firm contact) would be very useful. However, I would also need to acquire a more rigid tripod for best results. One drawback is that the cost of the support rig and the fact that it is lens specific (RRS long lens package is adjustable and components can be used on various lenses). Anyway, I cannot judge Kirk on high price because to innovate is expensive and copying is cheap. Most users probably don't get any aftermarket collar (I suspect many will mostly use this lens hand held and when required, use the supplied Nikon collar) and thus the market is limited. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Great, but what about AF speed? I have not seen many comments about that other than it beeing an f5.6 lens.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Again, that is similar to the 80-400 AF-S VR, whose AF speed is very good under good light, surprising for an f5.6 lens. However, it is slow under heavy overcast, evening, night, and indoors (unless there is strong stadium light). If you have a static subject under dim light, those cross-type AF points will lock focus ok as long as your subject has decent contrast. Any moving subject under dim light is going to be very problematic.</p>

<p>So far I am very happy with the AF speed on the 200-500mm, but I have only used it under good light outdoors. The dimmest situation I have used it is around 6:30pm when I captured the following elk image ( http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00d/00dVoF-558634384.jpg ) posted to this week's <a href="/nature-photography-forum/00dVn4">Monday in Nature Weekly Photo Sept. 28, 2015</a></p>

<p>For comparison, two weeks ago we had early dinner at a restaurant by the bay. We were done a little after 7pm and saw a bunch of brown pelicans diving for fish. The light was clearly poor. That was before the 200-500mm was available and I had the 80-400 and a 300mm/f4 with me. Even though a longer focal length would have helped, I immediately put on the 300mm/f4. I like the action but certainly not the light: http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00d/00dURt-558443684.jpg</p>

<p>Concerning the tripod collar, the one that comes with the 200-500 is not bad. I prefer something smoother but I am not sure I would pay $190 for one just for the improvement. Any Really Right Stuff version is likely going to be even more expensive than Kirk's.</p>

<p>Thanks Shun for commenting further about the AF speed!</p>

<p>I want one and I don't know why. I mean, I'd use it occasionally. Want.</p>

<p>I am still on the fence between the 80-400mm AF-S the sigma 150-600mm sport and this new lens. However I am starting to lean more and more towards the new nikon lens as details and user accounts come out. It is sharp and would be a great addition for me for wildlife photos. </p>

<p>Thank you everyone for sharing all of your experiences with this lens.</p>

<p>These were the photos that caused me to put in an order for the 200-500. I have held out on buying a travel zoom for many years, but the price/performance on this one makes it an easy decision.<br>

http://www.pbase.com/lance_b/nikon_200_to_500</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I am still on the fence between the 80-400mm AF-S the sigma 150-600mm sport and this new lens. However I am starting to lean more and more towards the new nikon lens as details and user accounts come out. It is sharp and would be a great addition for me for wildlife photos.</p>

<p> </p>

</blockquote>

<p>My thinking is that for a general purpose/travel lens, the 80-400mm AFS has advantages. For wildlife, the 200-500 has advantages. Since I am more of a "traveler" than a wildlife guy (and flare resistance is a top priority for me,) I'm keeping the former although the latter is quite attractive.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

<p>Kent,</p>

<p>I totally agree with your assessment. I am less of a traveler since I have a three year old son and more of a wildlife guy living in an area that lends itself to that so the extra reach of the new lens would be nice.</p>

 

<p>The 200-500mm/f5.6 AF-S VR is a fairly big lens. If you are into wildlife photography, it can be great. Otherwise, I think the 80-400 AF-S VR is generally a more useful lens. The problem is that Nikon's pricing seems reversed. The 80-400 is quite expensive for what it offers while the 200-500mm is abnormally cheap (probably thanks to competition from Tamron and Sigma). That is why the 200-500mm seems attractive. However, IMO it is not a very useful lens for most people.</p>

<p>Maybe Nikon will be under pressure to lower the price for the 80-400mm. I can't imagine it'll sell very well now with so much competition from outside as well as within Nikon.</p>

<p>Below is an image showing the 200-500mm attached to a D800E inside a ThinkTank StreetWalker. This the smallest among the three StreetWalker models: http://www.thinktankphoto.com/products/streetwalker-backpack.aspx<br>

And I can fit the 80-400 on the side along with a TC-14E III.</p>

<p>P.S. StreetWalker seems to be a strange choice for a product name.</p><div></div>

<p>Well, the StreetWalker is fairly slim and narrow which means when walking in a crowded street it doesn't stand out and it's less likely that the user hits another pedestrian with the bag when turning or wading trough the crowd. Thus the name. The Airport line by contrast are big and have fairly sharp corners to utilize the space available in the cabin in an optimal way to provide as much space for gear as possible. However at least my Airport Commuter can get in the way of people in crowdy places and it is quite noticeable due to its size.</p>

 

<p>Street walker is also slang for prostitute.</p>

<p>I was in a camera store today where they had one of these, and tried it out on a D3200. I was surprised first of all at how relatively small it is, compared to the 500/4 AIP I'm used to. It's really not so terribly big for hand holding. But it is very dense and heavy. It's pretty easy to hand hold for a while, but I'd get pretty tired of lugging it around.</p>

<p>I just fired off a few shots in the store, not a very good test, but I was impressed with how sharp it was and how well it fared in low light. The VR was impressive. I'm still not sure about how I would do carrying it around, but it's very tempting. </p>

<p>I did find that hand holding it, I constantly was hitting the rear control and moving the focus point. I do that often anyway, but with that big lens it happened with nearly every shot. It's not very friendly to a small body that does not have a locking control. A minor point, perhaps, but it's one of those things would require some readjustment of how one holds it. </p>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

Street walker is also slang for prostitute.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>

Nick picked up what I was referring to. Not sure that is also used in the UK and Australia, but I wouldn't expect an

American company to use such a name.

</P>

<P>

Concerning the 500mm/f4, it requires a 500/4 = 125mm front element. A 500mm/f5.6 needs to be 89mm, hence we can

use 95mm filters. That is a big difference in front element size.

</P>

<p>Just had the time to try this lens (200-500) on a focus-spree in good light, side by side with the 80-400. It is very good. I apologize if I had created any doubt in anyone's mind for writing in a prior post that I wasn't sure about its focus speed and accuracy, even though this aspect has already been discussed by others in positive light.</p>

<p>As a Brit, I'd certainly raise an eyebrow at the name, but frankly I've not forgiven Think Tank for going from Airport Acceleration to Airport Accelerator - because Google can't tell them apart, and neither can half the reviewers. Nice bag, though. Could be worse - half of HTC's phone range sounded like prophylactics at one point. I've worked for companies that have come up with worse than that, too.<br />

<br />

Having tried to buy filters in that kind of size (actually, only the 86mm used by the 150-500), I appreciate the smaller rear drop-in on the 500mm prime - not that the polariser of my 200mm was cheap, because of the need to rotate it. Still, could be the 105mm of the 120-300 f/2.8...</p>

I don't think a polarizer makes a whole lot of sense for a 500mm/f5.6 lens. You lose two stops with the polarizer and it is

more like f11. There are very few situations that you can tolerate such a slow supertele.

<p>That might be a bit harsh, Shun. For fast-moving birds, I certainly agree with you that faster shutter speeds make a big difference (even if I was qualified to disagree - and I have a load of blurry hawks shot recently with a 70-200 to prove that I'm under-qualified). For a relatively static subject - birds sitting on water, say, when a polariser might help - f/11 is still a stop faster than f/16, or ISO 250 at 1/500s. With VR or a tripod, especially when I can drop the shutter speed a little, I'd not call that unreasonable. Of course, it's as well I didn't bother for my 150-500, because then I actually needed to stop down to f/11 before I was getting sharp(ish) results, and the polariser would have taken me to ISO 1000 for 1/500s in direct sunlight. Ew.<br />

<br />

So, for a swan, I'd think of a polariser. Maybe also for sports car racing if I wanted to see through the windscreens. Hummingbirds, not so much. YMMV. :-)</p>

<p>Andrew, sunny 16 means noon time, very bright and harsh light. The best time to photograph is more like 7, 8am or 5, 6pm (depending on you exact location on earth and the season). Those are also the hours wildlife is most active. I would say we should be talking about 3 stops below sunny 16, give or take. All of a sudden you have 500mm, f5.6 minus two stops due to the polarizer, ISO 250 and 1/60 sec. That is simply way too slow a shutter speed for my comfort for 500mm even on a big tripod. To use a polarizer, you need to bump the ISO up to maybe 800 or over 1000 and take a non-trivial hit on quality.</p>

<p>As I have mentioned on this thread earlier, I think 500mm, f5.6 without a polarizer is on the slow side. I by far prefer a 500mm/f4, but obviously we are talking about much higher cost, weight and no zooming.</p>

<p>Accepted, Shun - nice light is, sadly, also limited light. Not that we get much of any kind of light in the UK, for the most part. I'm not sure I'd necessarily go down three stops for my "swan on a pond" situation, and 1/60s tends to scare me because of Nikon's history with tripods and shutter slap, but then I'd be metering for the highlights which might gain me a little over the natural exposure, but I'd certainly accept that I'd not be at base ISO much and it'd be for selective conditions. Kind of hard for me to be critical when the drizzle had so much input in my blurry falcons...<br />

<br />

To be fair, modern cameras are damned good at ISO 1000. If this was the Canon forum, we might even be happy; unfortunately, I find my self struggling to stay at ISO 64 when I possibly can in order to have the ability to recover shadows. No argument that f/5.6 isn't ideal in a long lens, but in the absence of Nikon taking on the Canon 400 f/4 DO, there's not so much we can expect to be done about that. There's always the Sigma 200-500, of course!<br />

<br />

Meanwhile, Nikon are reporting an issue with the AF on their 200-500 (when zooming), if I understand correctly.</p>

<p>For whatever it is worth, I captured this image at 8:12am a week ago. The EXIF data show that it is only 1.5 stops below "sunny 16," brighter than what I had expected:</p>

<ul>

<li>500mm, f5.6, 1/1250 sec @ ISO 400 on the D7200</li>

</ul>

<p>I used auto ISO to keep the shutter speed at a minimum of 1/1250, and the D7200 picked ISO 400. While it is not bad, I can see that it is a bit noisy compared to ISO 100.</p><div></div>

<blockquote>

<p>So far I am very happy with the AF speed on the 200-500mm, but I have only used it under good light outdoors. The dimmest situation I have used it is around 6:30pm when I captured the following elk image (<a href="http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00d/00dVoF-558634384.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00d/00dVoF-558634384.jpg</a> ) posted to this week's <a href="/nature-photography-forum/00dVn4" rel="nofollow">Monday in Nature Weekly Photo Sept. 28, 2015</a></p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is one sharp lens! (more than enough for my amateur tendencies). Hmm....my attachment to my 500 F4 is diminishing rapidly at this point! </p>

<blockquote>

<p>The 200-500mm/f5.6 AF-S VR is a fairly big lens. If you are into wildlife photography, it can be great. Otherwise, I think the 80-400 AF-S VR is generally a more useful lens. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thanks for pointing that out Shun. Speaking from my own (limited) experience with wildlife photography (which is the only reason I am interested in these lenses), I have almost never found myself in a situation where I needed to use a focal length less than 200mm. <br>

For e.g., I don't remember the last time I used by 70-200 at anything less than 200+1.4x. That immediately reduced the usefulness/practicality of the 80-400 <em><strong>for me</strong></em>. This is also the reason why I never looked into that lens. <br>

And it is precisely this fact that my eyes lit up the moment I read about the announcement of the 200-500. Finally a lens with just about the perfect zoom range for my purposes. And to read that it is nearing the 600 f4 VR in sharpness (even if it gets close its a bonus for me) is just fantastic. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>In my mind, there is no more concern about the sharpness of the 200-500mm. I compared it side-by-side with a 600mm/f4 AF-S VR. If they are not equal, it is close enough. The other factors such as AF speed and accuracy far outweight any sharpness difference.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Regarding weight and form factor: just the fact that it fits into your camera bag with the camera attached is enough for me. I am used to carrying around the Sigma 150-500 and never experienced a big problem with it. It is clear to me that the portability of this lens is going to far far better than my 500 F4, which is extremely important for me. <br>

Add to that hand-holdability (upto a certain point) and 4 stop VR, it, for me is the holy grail I have been in search of. (that and the Nikon D300 replacement which Nikon refuses to bring out :)). <br>

Hats off to Nikon. <br>

Avi</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Meanwhile, Nikon are reporting an issue with the AF on their 200-500 (when zooming), if I understand correctly.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>https://nikoneurope-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/65374</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Identifying lenses with which the firmware has already been updated<br />Firmware in lenses with a serial number of 2008365 or higher have already been updated.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /> Looks like the issue may have already been addressed. </p>