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Apple Munching
Nikon D1h, 300mm f/2.8 AF-S, TC-20e--900mm effective focal length, 1/160sec, f/5.6, ISO 800.
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So, with my 300 f/2.8, TC-20e, and overcast skies, I was in a pickle. Perfect long lens technique and static subjects were the only way I could get the images I wanted. Could I use a longer lens? Sure, my 600mm f/4 would've been great except that lens weighs twice times as much as my 300mm f/2.8 and I need a tripod that weighs twice as much as one I could use with the smaller lens. Altogether, it's an extra 10 pounds of gear I prefer not to schelp around except when I have to. Maybe it's because I'm getting older but lighter camera setups are a lot more appealing nowadays.
Pretending we're shooting the D2x
- Black Bear Image above - How could I have used the Nikon D2x in when shooting the image above? I would've set it to crop mode to get the 2x crop factor and added a TC-14e for an effective focal length 840mm's which is close enough to 900mm's. I also would set the ISO to 400 verses 800 to keep the aperture down to f/4 to preserve the narrow DOF. BTW, these settings are much better than the 300 f/2.8 with TC-20e at f/5.6. In the end, the overall image quality would be much better with the shorter teleconverters and lower ISO than using the longer teleconverters and higher ISO, a double benefit of the crop mode.
- Snow Geese Image below - What would I do here? I'm using my 600mm f/4 AF-S combined with a TC-14e and flash to fill in shadows to deal with the harsh light. I could've set the D2x to 2x crop mode to do away with the TC-14e and lowered the aperture from f/6.3 to f/4.5 to keep preserve the DOF. Increasing the aperture size allows me to increase the shutter 100% to 1/2500 sec or to lower the ISO to 100 from 200. Either option would improve the overall quality of the image.
All of this presumes the image quality of a cropped D2x image is comparable to my venerable D1h. That's a big if and I'm crossing my fingers, hoping for the best, eating right... Doing everything but sacrificing to the gods that the quality is delivered when the camera ships in the not too distant future. Regardless, the crop mode has me very interested in the D2x. I can only hope...
What else has Nikon introduced to give us some clue as to where they're going. Not 2 months ago they brought out the venerable 200mm f/2.0 AF-S. Long ago this was a Nikon legend which seemed to give people pause as to why this lens was introduced. Now that the D2x is public knowledge with its 2x crop mode, things are a lot more clear.
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Snow Geese Approaching
Nikon D1h, 600mm f/4 AF-S, TC-14e--1260mm effective focal length, 1/1250sec, f/6.3, ISO 200, SB-28DX Fill
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