Lense Help Please

[glenn_christian]

<p>I have a D300 and I would like to know which Nikon Lense will be best for a 250 Yard Photograph. I'm a professional Private Investigator and have a high profile investigation and need to capture a photograph at 250 yards and should be able to identify the person or persons within the photograph. I have looked at the Nikon 200 - 400 mm VR or the Nikon 600 mm. Thanks for all replies.</p>

[glenn_christian]

<p>By the way cost is not an issue, only time. Thanks</p>

[commtrd]

<p>Go for the 600 but you will need to support the lens adequately to ensure best IQ. Then again being able to find one on extremely short notice may be pretty difficult as nikon seems to make these exotics in limited runs so they are not readily available all the time.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>You can rent those lenses from various places on the internet and some camera shops. You might want to consider a spotting scope with a digital camera attached - digiscoping. </p>

[gen]

<p>Lensrentals.com has the <a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/nikon-600mm-f4-af-s-vr/for-nikon">600 AF-S for rent</a> . Note that you will need a pretty strong tripod and probably a gimbal ball head (Wimberly, etc.) to go with that. Not sure if Lensrentals has that for rent as well- you may want to ask them.</p>

[breogan_gomez]

<p>The 200-400 f/4 still could be used with a 1.4TC and you will have an efective 300-600 f/5.6 that weights a bit more than a half of a 600/4. On the other hand the 600/4 could be turned into a 900/5.6 with the same converter.</p>

<p> </p>

[Ray House]

A 600mm Nikon manual focus is listed for sale in todays classifieds.

[mike_halliwell]

<p>Assuming the pictorial quality of the 'portrait' is not <em>that</em> important, how about a 600mm mirror lens? Cheap, available NOW, lightweight and small. Will take a x2 converter. Could use it with one of those clamps that fit over a half wound car side-window. Manual focussing at that distant isn't too hard. ISO 1600 is still more than usable for ID purposes. If focussing is hard, a technique that takes advantage of the 'free' shots digitally is to put it on Continuous High (Frame rate) and <strong>very</strong> slightly move the focus ring while shooting, with a 4GB card you can take enough so that some will be perfect.<br />With a x2 you'd get the equivalent reach of a 1800mm (on a D300), and before anyone twitches, I KNOW THE FOCAL LENGTH DOESN'T CHANGE!<br />A 600mm f4 on a tripod with the specialist head to hold that monster is not exactly stealthy either. Mind you, 250yds is a long way!</p>

[peter_k4]

<p>Just doing the math here (and I may have fudged something) but even with a 600, on a D300, given a person's head is approximately 8" across, the head will look to be 0.2" wide on an 8x12 print. Is that big enough for you?</p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Peter, I'm thinking that the OP could probably crop the pics down some before enlarging and printing. He said he needed face recognition, not to be able to tell if the subject had acne. :-)</p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>I should clarify that i was only half kidding in my previous post. I agree that 600mm would not be suficient, but I can't speak about the 900mm effective focal lenght because I have never used anything longer than 600mm effective. I do think that a 600 on a crop sensor with a TC would be a viable option since the resolution would not be as demanding for face recognition only.</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>I've got a Sigma 600mm f8 mirror lens and a fairly crappy x2. Guess I'll have to pace out 250yds and try it. Over that distance heat haze etc starts becoming a real possibility. <br>

In old Canon (and probably others') lens brochures there used to be the same picture taken with all the different focal lengths the company made: any of those with a face in?</p>