Continuing a blog series on gear I love, and what goes with us on location as we head to the holidays.
One thing that goes with us now, consistently, if not always, is the new-ish Nikkor 300mm f4 lens with the “Phase Fresnel” technology. It’s official designation is the AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR lens. Now that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it does indicate the amount of tech that has gone into this new era of incredibly light telephoto lenses we are graced with as shooters. See below, the comparison of this lens to my tried and true 70-200mm.
That’s a lot of reach in a small package, to be sure. And the loss of an f-stop in today’s world where ISO 400 or so looks as good as Kodachrome 64 used to look back in the day is, relatively speaking, inconsequential. I would trade that f-stop any day for the lightness and resultant hand-holdability of this piece of glass. The pic up above, as the header, is a close focused detail on the hands. I backed off and shot a portrait, benefitting enormously from the compression of the 300mm stuffed into this puppy.
And, from what the engineers calculate, it has 4.5 stops of VR incorporated into it. That makes shots like the two below, from the top deck of a lurching, moving London sightseeing bus very doable. It’s just a simple crowd shot of Brexit demonstrators, and a color detail shot of their flags, but again, the compression helps. Shot this, FYI, with the Z7 camera and the FTZ adapter. Perfectly translated, as if I was hooked up to my regular DSLRs, both in terms of sharpness, and follow focus.
And, it fits in the bag nicely. Or a fanny pack. Or a belt pouch. It’s crazy to have that much telephoto in such a small package. But the technology advances, and so do we. This lens is a keeper, for sure.
More tk…
Very nice Joe. I’ll have to check one out at the camera store.
Great review of lenses. Color stand out.
I saw the new 500 fresnel at Photo Plus. Truly incredible Honey I Shrunk the Lenses.
Thank you for the guidance – as an avid amateur, I appreciate your good advice but will perhaps wait until I get permission from She Who Must Be Obeyed ?. One question: your skill with lighting is legendary, so while this image of the lavender farmer looks like it’s been taken at the close of a beautiful day in Provence…could there be a Speedlite involved? It doesn’t look like it…but I’ve followed your work enough to know that just because I can’t tell, doesn’t mean there isn’t one there ?
No Speedlights! :-)))
Thank you for the guideline
I loved what you shared, especially as if I was connected to my regular digital SLRs, both in terms of sharpness and focus tracking. I will combine it with what I am doing thttp://bit.ly/2Fkf0px o improve my results.
Amazing what the new tech does to these lenses!
Thanks for sharing this info, the images look great! Will see if I can get my hands on one of these lenses to test.