After seeing a few of Rogers posts with the D700 / 80-400vr combo I decided to pick up a like new copy I saw for sale on another forum. And what better place to test out a new long zoom than Animal Kingdom. Here are a few from today... And last my daughter using her new 70-300vr she inherited from me.
Like Daddy, like daughter. She knows what she's doing, doesn't she? I do like the bokeh on this lens and it's ability to show detail. Much better than the 18-200VR, IMO. I'm bringing the 80-400VR to AK in December. With the crop, it's a 600mm f5.6 for me. Should give me enough reach (if not too much but that's where the shorter zoom lengths come in.) Question...did you use it on the safari? Wondering if it's too heavy to use on those bumpy jeeps.
Thanks- she does good but looses interest in picture taking quickly at Disney for other things. As for the lens I agree- I had the 18-200vr for a while and still have the 70-300vr (sort of.) I did a side by side comparrison of the D300/70-300vr combo and the D700/80-400vr combo and found the 80-400 slightly sharper but with more pleasing bokeh. I can post some comparrisons if anyone is interested. I have not taken it on the Safari ride yet but would guess it would be too heavy to get many keepers. I tried the 70-200vr on that ride a few times which is similar size and just got bounced around too much. (I swear they train those drivers to hit every pot hole.)
While the lens weight can be a problem, I think the bigger issue is camera shake caused by all the bumps in the ride. I've shot with the 70-200 on the safari, with decent results. They day I took these was overcast, which is usually better than full sun for taking pictures of darker animals. The problem I had was getting a fast enough shutter speed to negate the camera shake caused by the drivers hitting the potholes. I didn't want to crank up the ISO because there is a noticeable noise gain above 200 ISO on the D2Xs. On a camera that has less noise at high ISO like the D700, this becomes less of an issue. However, the 80-400 is twice as long as the 70-200, which magnifies the shake problem, forcing you to use a higher shutter speed, and therefore possibly a higher ISO. I think you could use the 80-400 on the safari if you can get shutter speeds faster than 1/600 to negate the shake. I'm going to try it on my next trip, but that may not be for awhile...
That lens sure does shine on FX, doesn't it? As for the safari, it seems to do just fine. (Granted, the shot below was with the D300, but still....) Didn't have this lens for my last trip out there.
put me down as a fan of the 80-400 too. It worked pretty good on the d80 and great on the d300. I think it is a great value for a 400mm lens. Couple that with the high iso of the d700 and it is a great lens. I dont think you would really miss f2.8 except for compositional purposes. Because of the VR, I've been shooting this lens in shutter priority with a shutter speed based on my subject and letting the camera pick the iso and f-stop
