Nikon Wednesday 2020: #9

[Matt Laur]

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For this Nikon Wednesday, a couple of quick and dirty shots from a project last week. Another one of those ultra-condensed timeline projects, but we made some headway just like the art director called wanted.

[Bill J Boyd]

Roadrunner with Tarantula (Austin, Texas, Nikon D850)

[Rob Davies]

Z6 24-70 f2.8G @62 1/60th f9 iso 100

[Sanford]

San Carlos Beach, Cannery Row, Nikon D300, 18-200mm Zoom

[Jon Eckman]

[JDMvW]

Tula-Mexico

Nikkor-S 55mm f/1.2, Nikkormat EL

[brian_niemi1]

D750 70-210mm f/4.0-5.6 at 98mm 1/40 sec @f/11 ISO 100

[Dieter Schaefer]

D500 with 200-500

 

D500 with 500PF

[yardkat]

The cedar waxwings came to visit our neighbor's tree. D750+Sigma 150-600.

[Nickens]

[erik_christensen3]

Ha Giang Province

 

[paul_b.1]

A view from my living room window : (shoot 10 minutes ago) Edited February 26, 2020 by paul_b.|1

[luis triguez]

Nikkor AF-D 28-105 (105) on D700

[mike_halliwell]

Behold it works...!

 

D850 + Sigma 60-600mm Sport + TC14 II. Handheld 1/250 f11 @ ISO 5000.

 

[mike_halliwell]

Late Edit. The whole ensemble isn't too unmanagable and will AF OK as-long as lock-on is close by (MF tweeking), otherwise it shoots right by both ways, AKA hunts. EXIF doesn't seem to 'see' the TC.

 

Handholding ~840mm @ 1/250 is interesting but OS keeps the VF stable.

 

Distance records as 7.92M away..... no idea how accurate that is, but seems about right. No reason to doubt it, other than the TC info being missing.

[Andrew Garrard]

Mike - are you actually seeing benefit from the teleconverter? That is, is it actually better than scaling digitally 1.4x? I'm not sure whether the 200-500+TC14 is - but that lens is weakest at 500mm wide open, and once you've stopped it down for sharpness you've got diffraction at f/11 with the teleconverter. I definitely suspect hiring an 800mm would help me next time I get to somewhere with wildlife.

 

That said, I struggled to get as close as you did to my local squirrels even hiding in a car. I suspect small children chase them, and my Buddha-esque physique reminds them of a giant toddler.

[mike_halliwell]

Doing the with/without test with a real 'live' squirrel is gonna be tough! Maybe, I'll have to hide a small, furry soft-toy up a tree?

 

My 200-500mm doesn't like my copy of the TC 14 E II, certainly at 500mm. It's bearable at 400mm, but what's the point?

 

Luckily, the Sigma is close to it's sharp v focal-length sweet spot at the long end. I got away with ISO 5000, so not sure how bad cropping will look. The image above is pretty much full frame vertically.

 

I'm very impressed with Dieter's 500mm PF + TC shots here on Nikon Wednesday, and I guess AF is pretty normal with that combo. The Sigma + TC is spotty at best.

[Dieter Schaefer]

I'm very impressed with Dieter's 500mm PF + TC shots here on Nikon Wednesday, and I guess AF is pretty normal with that combo.

I have both the TC-14E (optically identical to the TC-14EII) and the TC-14EIII - and I tried them both on the 500PF and the 200-500. In both cases AF speed and accuracy suffer, as does the optical quality (with the 500PF starting at a higher level; can't complain about the performance of my 200-500 at 500mm though). With either TC and with either lens, AF acquisition takes longer and the tendency to miss focus (or misfocus) ever so slightly is much higher than without the TC. It's been my experience with Nikon TCs (1.4x for sure, 1.7x much less so and 2x not even worth trying) that as long as one stays within the same focus distance range as without the TC, the optical quality can be acceptable. When used to "extend the reach" to outside what the focus distance range one would use the bare lens at - not so much. I am almost certain that some contribution to the quality decrease then comes from not being able to properly AF fine tune (only one parameter with Nikon glass, Sigma and Tamron now at least can be tuned for different focus distances (and AFAIK also at different focal lengths).

 

For me at least - I tend to not use even the 1.4x TCs much anymore - even when the optical quality is still fine, the tendency to screw up the focus introduces too much uncertainty into the picture-making process. Frankly, they are a waste of money.

[mike_halliwell]

Frankly, they are a waste of money

Certainly if bought new! Which 'luckily' I very rarely can...:D

 

Nikon D500 + Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 Sport. 165mm f4.5 1/2500 ISO 500