23 Feb 01

500mm f/4 AF-S

The queen of my arsenal is a 500mm f/4 AF-S. Next to my house and most of my cars, It's the most expensive thing I've ever purchased. Without a doubt it sets a new standard as a spectacle when out in the field. Many times I've had people approach me wondering if I was a professional photographer. Or, they may say I've got some great equipment. I'm never sure how to respond to these statements but it does confirm that a photographer with a 500mm lens on a tripod turns heads.

The rebirth of photography in my life was directly related to capturing the tremendous amount of wildlife near my house in Cold Lake, Alberta. I always knew I wanted to get into long lens photography and had absolutely no clue about it. I didn't know the costs. I didn't know the skills necessary to shoot decent images. I certainly didn't know about all the support equipment required when purchasing long lenses. More about that later.

My quest for determining what long lens to purchased began with identifying my style of photography. This was quite a challenge since I hadn't ever shot such a long lens, let alone pick one up. So, developing my style was done totally as a mind exercise. I sat a desk or in bed "day dreaming" how I would handle a long lens and what type of images I'd make. I had used extensively my 300mm f/4 ED-IF but I knew that techniques I used with that lens wouldn't necessarily direcly translate to a super-telephoto. All I knew was I wanted to get a lot closer to my subjects because my current equipment wasn't making the cut.

Things I considered were as follows:

1) Compatibility with my current camera system--had to be Nikon equipment.

2) Cost was a factor but lower quality to save a few dollars wasn't allowed.

3) Quality was extremely important--third party long zoom lenses were eliminated as a result.

4) In-flight bird photography was a desire--required high speed auto-focus technology.

5) Portability for hiking was a consideration--meant minimizing size and weight.

6) Wide apertures for low light photography was also important.

7) Compatibility with a high quality set of teleconverters--I wanted to extend my lens' reach.

The first three conditions reduced the field to Nikkor and high quality 3rd party manufactures like Tokina. Condition four meant that I needed to have a lens with a internal motor. This lowered the field to a Sigma or Nikon lens. Both made lenses with internal motors--HSM for Sigma and AF-S for Nikon. Condition 7 probably reduced the selection to Nikon. Their teleconverters were legendary. The TC-14e combined with a 500mm or 600mm AF-S was reputed to be incredible. Also, the TC-20e was no slouch. I couldn't say the same for the Sigma combo. Now the choice was between the 600mm f/4 AF-S and 500mm f/4 AF-S. Though cost was a factor, it came down to condition 5. I had the notion I wanted to go hiking with this thing. Hence the problem with developing a photography style sitting at a table at home. Sure I purchased the 500mm f/4 AF-S over the 600mm f/4 AF-S because of its size and weight. Since buying it, I have yet to hike longer than three miles on prepared trails in the woods. I have yet to take the this lens out for walks of any lengthy duration. It's just too big. Most of the time I shoot within 200 yards of my car. Obviously, I could've used the 600mm f/4 AF-S the same way. So, did I make the right decision? I love my lens but many times with my current style of photography I sure wish I had the 600mm f/4 AF-S.

Finally, here's the review of this lens. The speed of this lens is awesome. The internal auto-focus mechanism is fast and quiet. I've heard some complain about the nose of Nikon's AF-S lenses. I can't say why. There's a reason why it's called Silent Wave technology--because it's silent. All I've ever heard out of this lens is a slight whisper when the focus mechanism is active. It's very quiet. Combined with my Nikon F5, the auto-focus speed is incredible. Almost as quickly as my eye, this lens/camera combo can precisely focus on incredibly quick moving subjects. Common Golden Eye ducks are fast birds and this lens as no trouble tracking their movements. The stat sheets say the F5 with this lens can track objects approaching at speeds as fast as 200 mph. Wow!!! To even improve the lens' performance, there's a focus limiter that splits the focus range between long and short. In long, it'll focus from 30 feet to infinity. In short, it'll focus from 36 feet to min range. 95% of the time I leave it on long but I know exactly where the switch is to be able to restrict the range as required. Oh, there another mode where all restrictions are off where the lens will focus from minimum range to infinity. It doesn't get much use.

If ever there's a reason to manually adjust your focus, that capability is continually available. Simply touch the manual focus ring and the auto-focus is overidden. To restart auto-focus, just re-press the AF or shutter buttons on your camera. It's a characteristic of all Nikon AF-S lenses. I set my custom functions so that auto-focus is disabled on the shutter botton. I depend wholely on the AF switches on the back of my F5. It's a tremendous help for composition and I will get into that in another article--AF Switches.

The optical quality of this lens is outstanding. The contrast is tremendous and the sharpness is excellent. There's a slight amount of light falloff when wide open at f/4. This is noticable when shooting against a uniform background like grey sky. Fortunately this totally disappears when stopped down only a 1/3 stop. There's not much else to say about the lens' optical quality. It's simply wonderful.

How do I use this lens? I've written an entire article on long lens technique. All the pointers mentioned there are applicable so I bore you with repeating those details here. Most of the time I travel with my Kinesis Long Lens bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat with the lens fully configured and ready to go. That means the lens hood is on and the camera is on the lens. There's definately no problem with standing the lens on its hood. The hood is quite strong enough to withstand the rigors of supporting the lens and a camera in my Kinesis bag. When the action starts, I simply pull the lens out from the bag and set it up on the tripod that's usually splayed across the passenger seat or out the driver's window on a Kinesis bean bag. I find this whole setup as being very convenient, safe for the equipment, and responsive.

When hiking, there's a couple of things I do. First, I can shoulder the lens on my left shoulder with its strap while my right has my other F5 with 80-200 f/2.8 AF-S attached. I might use this setup when traveling long distances but it's not very responsive. Mostly I just leave it attached to whatever tripod I'm using and shoulder it. With my Gitzo 410, that whole contraption weighs about 20+ pounds. While very steady when shooting it sure is a pain when traveling. Lots of stops to make images when walking with that combo is a requirement. Note: unlike many other photographers, I leave my camera straps attached to my cameras and lenses. They remove them because of the real danger that a camera strap waving in the wind will cause soft images. Unfortunately, just too often I find myself swaping camera bodies. All of my cameras eventually find themselves attached to my 80-200 f/2.8 AF-S and slung over my right shoulder. I need to have my camera straps attached. Because of this, I take extra care to ensure the they aren't waving in the wind. It's a precaution that doesn't take much effort.

Have I mentioned the plethora of additional equipment necessary to fullly support a lens of this caliber? Even though you just spent $7,000 dollars on the lense you still have to spend about $1,000 dollars more on support equipment. I won't get into full details here on each thing but the list has to include at least the following--sturdy tripod, high-tech ball head, lens plates, flash arm, flash extender, and perhaps a remote release. Without them--for that matter, without quality versions of them--you run the risk of never taking sharp images. It's hard enough dealing with sharpness issues with a 500mm lens without having to compete with floppy tripods and such. The whole point is if your going to spend the money to get an outstanding lens, you have to spend the money on the right kind of support equipment.

How does this lens perform with its matched teleconverters? It's wonderful with the TC-14e. That tele combined with the 500mm f/4 AF-S is outstanding. Except for the slightly diminished light--one stop less--there seems little affect on the overall performance of the lens. When attached, you essentially have a 700mm f/5.6 AF-S which is perfect for bringing in those farther subjects. Unfortunately, even that combo isn't enough. So, the TC-20e enters the picture. While an outstanding teleconverter, it definately affects the overall quality of the lens. Contrast is reduced, sharpness is slightly diminished. You can tell that a 2x tele is attached. Are the images acceptable? Totally, it just takes lots of effort to ensure sharp, contrasty images. Though the lens isn't supposed to auto-focus with a TC-20e attached, it does with reasonable speed. In fact, the auto-focus sensors of my newest F5 all function when this teleconverter is attached to the 500mm f/4 AF-S. I do have one observation. Typically, the images obtained with this lens are slightly soft. My theory is this is related to how the camera auto-focus'. When manually focused, I've taken many outstanding quality images with this lens. While totally depending on the camera's auto-focus mechanism seems to produce slightly soft images. I don't know why and it's probably why Nikon won't claim any auto-focus capability with this lens and a TC-20e.

That's a lot of stuff about one lens. Well, a Nikon 500mm f/4 AF-S is a lot of lens. No question purchasing one of these monster lenses brings you to a whole new world of photography. With the right skills, outstanding images will be the rule of the day.

Cheers

Tom