I've been eyeing up the Nikon 300mm PF lens for quite some time, despite never having shot any wildlife. No lens has made me FOMO at the mouth quite like it. So rather than dropping the best part of 2 grand on a wildlife lens, I should at least get out and mess around with a cheaper alternative.
I had forgotten about my good buddy Dave Kavanaghs stash of vintage lenses until a visit yesterday, and he kindly offered me a loan of his Nikkor 300mm F4.5 H lens. For context, this is a vintage lens, manual focus, used throughout the 1970s. Quite cool that us Nikonians have the option of using these old lenses though. This chunky bit of glass regularly sells for under 100 bucks on eBay.
A pristine 300mm "Nikkor H". Photo credit: www.destoutz.ch
Despite the lack of autofocus, the plan was that a day out with this lens in my local Botanical Gardens might give me a feel for the 300mm focal length.
I also had some questions about shooting with a 300mm lens. How much does camera shake come into play, and at what shutter speeds? And is 300mm long enough for birds? Maybe after dropping a wad of cash on the fancy new version, I will want to spend some extra cash on one of Nikons pricey teleconverters...
My first shot was a tower in nearby Glasnevin Cemetry. I was expecting more colour fringing from such an old lens so was pleasantly surprised. The splotches by the way, are on my sensor, not the lens. My D750 is due a service. ISO 500, F5.6, 1/4000.
The squirrels down there are very tame. In fact, they came too close to focus. Could it be that 300mm is too long? Just kidding! I certainly appreciated the reach, but I can see the appeal of modern tele zooms such as the Tamron 150-600mm for extreme versatility.
300mm on a full frame camera is certainly ideal for nearby critters like squirrels, but the limitations of the focal length quickly become obvious when you start trying to shoot song birds up trees. The shot below of the Robin is cropped, and you can see a loss of sharpness. By the way, I got plenty of shots with camera shake, as well as badly out of focus. Manual focusing is an art unto itself, and one I rather suck at.
This treecreeper (below) was really fast and agile, walking up and down, right way up and upside-down. Cute little things. He didn't mind me getting quite close. Unfortunately the MFD of the lens is around 4 meters so I had to actually back away from the bird to achieve focus.. heartbreaking!
I came across some Mandarin ducks down by the lake. These are fairly new arrivals to Ireland, but becoming an increasingly common sight in recent years.
This was my favourite shot, below. For such an elegant looking animal, these ducks love to splash around and make a fuss.
So, mission accomplished. While I won't be winning any prizes for these shots, I was able to get a feel for the 300mm focal length and answer those questions I had.
Certainly auto-focus will be a must, but that's a given for most of us these days. Camera shake? Most definitely an issue at 300mm, and VR would be much appreciated in a new telephoto lens. Finally, is 300mm long enough for birds? Well, almost. The newer 300mm lenses are razor sharp, so will be more forgiving with cropping, but regardless, I did have to go to some effort to get close to the birds, close enough that they usually moved away before long.
And what about this old 1970s lens?
Manual focus is decidedly tricky, especially with a beastly 1.1 kilogram lens on a full frame camera, so I couldn't recommend it for wildlife. Still, I should mention how impressed I was with the optics, considering this lens is so old, older than me in fact. I'm happy to fork out for autofocus, especially for shooting moving subjects, but if for some reason you're happy with manual focus on a telephoto prime, this lens has some nice image quality for under 100 bucks!
One more thing...
Just as I was leaving, fairly sold on the 300mm focal range, I spotted a buzzard in the field across the river. It was far enough away to take up very little in the frame but I took a couple of shots anyway. God damn. I guess I will be getting that teleconverter now too.