Tigerrrr

Sumatran Tiger admiring my telephoto...

Good portrait! Grr..

 

T. Krzesaj

David, what a sharp and wonderful portrait...I hit the zoo last week and posted a few of the results (also using a D70), but none come near this. Very well done! I think that I need to bring the 300mm prime next time, and maybe get me one of those 400mm VRs...like it?

Yes!!This is tigerrrr!!

a splendid big cat!!!!!

Christopher: The 80-400 VR is a nice lens and even after a year, I am still learning how to use it. With the D70, it becomes a 120-600 so the VR is a nice feature and more necessary. It is a little slow, IMHO, with respect to both aperture and focusing. The D70 is noisy but Noise Ninja 2.0 seems to really help. Additionally, I am using a lot of PS and Fred Miranda add ins to assist with sharpening. And then there is luck. I do use a hefty tripod in a lot of my zoo photos and other wildlife pics both with and without VR. Nikon suggests turning off VR when on a tripod but at 600mm, even a tripod could be more stable and I seem to get reasonable sharpness with VR (but not always). If you wish to use a telextender with this lens, you are limited to the older TC-201 which leaves you with manual focus and manual exposure control and a lot of guessing. The tripod and the remote control shutter release are essential along with mirror lock at 1200mm.

admiring your telephoto... or admiring you as his dinner? Really cool one!

Thanks David - points well-taken! I'll roll that around in my thoughts for the future trips to B&H!