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Best Hand-Holdable Reasonably Bright 400mm Prime?
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 11:51 am    Post subject: Re: Best Hand-Holdable Reasonably Bright 400mm Prime? Reply with quote

xaprb wrote:
My favorite telephoto is my Nikon 180mm f2.8 ED. The bokeh and image quality make me happy, and I love the focusing.

I'd like a reasonably fast-ish 400mm, with good-to-great image quality for things like insects and birds, but I'd like one that's got nice focus action and isn't too big and heavy if possible.

I'm thinking maybe 400mm f/5.6...

Suggestions?


As an "unorthodox" suggestion for your problem, maybe you could try using your Nikon 180mm F2.8 ED lens on a 20 MP M43 camera!

The equivalent lens would be 360mm F5.6, very close to the 400mm F5.6 target, but with the important benefit of close focus of just 1.8 meters, which is much shorter than most 400mm lenses.

The only question is whether the performance would be good, but as the Nikon 180mm F2.8 ED is a lens with above-average quality and only the central part of the image would be used, I think there's a good chance the end result will be quite satisfactory.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 5:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

marcusBMG wrote:

Addendum: one more option to consider - a 300mm f2.8 + teleconverter. The tamron adaptalls are the most readily available ones, one sold recently for £200, albeit with reported haze (item 284393014523).


I was about to recommend this, but I see Marcus had beet me to it. My Canon 400mm f/4.5 (pic from it above) was stolen and the only thing that's kept me from replacing it is my Tamron 300mm f/2.8 LD IF. I have the dedicated Tamron 1.4x teleconverter, which gives me essentially a 400mm f/4 lens, so a bit faster than the Canon, and a bit better corrected for CAs. So if you have room in your budget for the Tamron, it's definitely something to consider. Here in the US, Tamron 300/2.8s in reasonably good condition (no haze or fungus, but perhaps a bit rough cosmetically) will usually sell for about $500 and up. That's what I paid for mine.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 5:37 pm    Post subject: Re: Best Hand-Holdable Reasonably Bright 400mm Prime? Reply with quote

Gerald wrote:
xaprb wrote:
My favorite telephoto is my Nikon 180mm f2.8 ED. The bokeh and image quality make me happy, and I love the focusing.

I'd like a reasonably fast-ish 400mm, with good-to-great image quality for things like insects and birds, but I'd like one that's got nice focus action and isn't too big and heavy if possible.

I'm thinking maybe 400mm f/5.6...

Suggestions?


As an "unorthodox" suggestion for your problem, maybe you could try using your Nikon 180mm F2.8 ED lens on a 20 MP M43 camera!

The equivalent lens would be 360mm F5.6, very close to the 400mm F5.6 target, but with the important benefit of close focus of just 1.8 meters, which is much shorter than most 400mm lenses.

The only question is whether the performance would be good, but as the Nikon 180mm F2.8 ED is a lens with above-average quality and only the central part of the image would be used, I think there's a good chance the end result will be quite satisfactory.


Indeed, M43 cameras offer nice possibilites for tele shootings with relatively small and light lenses.

I've done some tests with my Lumix GX80 and the Leitz Elmar 135/4 (the best 135 lens I have) and added my Komura M39 2X-converter. That gives 540mm FOV in a very small and travel friendly package and delivers still very good results.
Additional benefits: The far better DOF and MFD of the 135mm lens remains; i.e. there is no need to stop down to increase DOF.
Disadvantage compared to my A7R2: Output only 16MP; i.e. not really poster friendly. However, more than good enough for digital presentation in any size.
The Lumix GX80 is most probably cheaper than any acceptable lens for FF. Wink


PostPosted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 12:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My favorite hand holdable 400mm is actually autofocus: Minolta AF APO 200mm F 2.8 G HS combined with the Minolta Tele converter 2X APO II


PostPosted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I walked out for a bit with my Nikon 300mm f/4.5 ED-IF and a Nikon 1.4x teleconverter, for 420mm focal length. This combination handles well, but it isn't very good wide open, with notable CA and purple fringing, "glow" around bright areas, and low contrast and sharpness. It doesn't create very clear images until the lens is stopped down several clicks, to about f8 or f11, which means the effective f-number is a stop lower than that. Then ISO has to be bumped up to avoid shake, and sensor noise starts to become a problem. As luck would have it, I chanced upon some wildlife I wished I'd had a better lens to capture! Some straight-out-of-camera photos below. Note that this is a Fujifilm X-S10 with in-body stabilization. I set ISO to 1600. Some of the shots are stopped down a bit -- look at the bokeh to detect that.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have one of those old Tokina-made 400mm 6.3 lenses. It's super long, but not all that heavy. If I'm shooting hand-held I screw a mini-tripod into the collar and use it as a foregrip. That works, but it's always better to brace against something - a table or a boulder or a tree, at least.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To the topic of using a shorter lens on a Micro Four Thirds body, it's a good suggestion. I think it would great. As a point of comparison, I happen to have the Olympus PEN-F, and the Olympus 50-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens, as well as the 1.4x teleconverter. This combination produces great photos and is wonderful to use. I could praise it for a long time -- short minimum focus distance, great image quality, etc, etc. It's not a manual focus lens of course. But every time I use it I'm reminded of how spoiled I can be by all the modern conveniences. Here are a few photos from a walk today, comparable to the walk I took with the Nikon 300 + TC a few days ago. These are shot in RAW and no postprocessing is applied at all. You can see quite a bit if CA if you pixel peep, especially in the corners (the lower left corner of the barn photo!), but since this is in RAW, automatic lens corrections are disabled, and when you let the camera produce JPGs it's barely visible. And the center is what matters most for insects/birds anyway. All this is just to say, my vintage lens fun has to be put into perspective sometimes :-)


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I got a copy of the Tokina-made TX-mount Vivitar 400mm f5.6. ø77 filter, 8 elements in 8 groups described here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/vivitar-400mm-f5-6.html

My copy is in quite clean condition; the optics are clear and bright, and although there is minor paint scratching on the built-in extendable hood, otherwise it only bears finger smudges and other dullness of age. There is some noticeable play in (apparently) the focusing helicoid, causing the front third of the barrel to wobble about a millimeter. I can't be sure it's hurting image quality, but it seems like it must. I'm hoping this is fixable and I can do it myself. If you know of disassembly instructions or service manuals, I'd appreciate links; I haven't gotten around to searching for it yet, but experience has taught me that I'm not always going to find materials others are aware of.

Optically it’s better than I expected after reading reviews/forums online. I stopped it down to f8 and f11 most of the time, and shot in bright sun. The lens is sharp enough to produce good images, but nowhere near the Fuji X-S10's 26MP worth of resolution. At minimum focus distance, there's what I take to be spherical aberration that's undercorrected, and it's pretty soft and glowy wide open. There’s definitely CA and LoCA, but actually not as bad as the Nikon 300/4.5 ED-IF with the Nikon TC14A. Handling is mostly pretty good; the focus action doesn’t feel luscious, but it’s fine. It’s pretty front heavy, but the aperture ring is very far back, and that’s the main problem. I can’t really change the aperture without putting the lens down from my eye, because I can’t hold the lens with the left hand and also reach the aperture ring at the same time. It's too heavy and unbalanced. When I have the aperture where I want, though, I can handhold it with ease. It's pretty well balanced on the focus grip, and the weight isn't too much for me.

I stalked a great blue heron for about 90 minutes at a local pond today and didn't get tired of holding the lens. I did get some good shots, although the pond is surrounded by dense brush and trees, so some of my shots were only through the undergrowth. I also shot some dragonflies and damselflies from distances of up to 10-15 meters. The lighting was very challenging: late morning, I was on a low hill under some trees, and the sun was across the pond from me. It couldn't have been much worse for harsh shadows and high-contrast edges. Nonetheless, the lens performed much better than I thought it would, and didn't flare/veil terribly against the backlighting (there wasn't direct sun on the front of the lens, but there was an algae-covered pond in front of it, brightly lit.)

At the end of my time there, I crept back up the hill and around to the southeast, trying to get onto the same side of the pond as the great blue heron, which had flown from the north side to the southwest side after I arrived. I was able to sight it through a hole in the foliage, and also saw a green heron arrive, although I didn't get a superb angle on it. From this location, the light was falling across my field of view left to right, much better. The lens produced correspondingly better colors as a result.

For the $70 I paid, this is certainly worth keeping. It's not the one lens to rule them all but it's not a joke either. It'll be a good basis for comparison against others I might get.

Sample photos follow, straight out of camera JPGs. I think they uploaded in fairly random order.


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

oh, I should also note that I was shooting RAW+JPG and deliberately underexposing to avoid clipping highlights too much ("exposing to the right") so some of the sample JPGs are pretty dark. But there's tons of shadow detail in the RAW files that I can pull out with ease. Here's one processed, cropped, sharpened.


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 1:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like 1 Like 1 Like 1

I don't think you'll ever see me getting a BIF with a long MF lens Laugh 1


PostPosted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Knudsen wrote:
Like 1 Like 1 Like 1

I don't think you'll ever see me getting a BIF with a long MF lens Laugh 1


What is "BIF" ...? I did have some English at high school, but I can't remember that one ... !!

Gr S


PostPosted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevemark wrote:
Knudsen wrote:
Like 1 Like 1 Like 1

I don't think you'll ever see me getting a BIF with a long MF lens Laugh 1


What is "BIF" ...? I did have some English at high school, but I can't remember that one ... !!

Gr S


Bird In Flight Smile


PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@xaprb

Out of curiosity I've made a test shot which should come very close to your requirements: 400mm FOV handheld in a small (travelfriendly) and reasonable package.

Panasonic Lumix GX80/85 MFT with 45-200 Lumix zoom at 200mm/F5.6, 1/80 sec. 200 ISO handheld.

First example shows the JPG straight from the camera:



Second example, same picture RAW, optimized on PC:



I know it's not exactly manual focus but extremely comfortable. The whole setup is only 850 gr. (lens/camera) and quite versatile.
In comparison my Sony A7R2/Minolta AF 300/4/1.4X Converter is 3100 gr. hence I rarely use that for travelling or hiking and it's also relatively difficult and cumbersome to use this combination free hand.
However, the result wouldn't be much different with the Sony combo, at least not in the same presentation size.

Just my 2 cents....


PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevemark wrote:
Knudsen wrote:
Like 1 Like 1 Like 1

I don't think you'll ever see me getting a BIF with a long MF lens Laugh 1


What is "BIF" ...? I did have some English at high school, but I can't remember that one ... !!

Gr S


Sorry, Steve! Bad habit of mine from another forum where there are a lot of bird photographers.

visualopsins Thank you! for responding to his question!


PostPosted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I heartily agree that the Tamron Adaptall-2 400/4 is a beautiful lens. But it's quite the lens to schlep around. I was similarly looking for the best compact telephoto of 300+, ideally closer to 400mm. As a Nikon guy, I finally bit the bullet and bought the AF-S 300/4 PF. It's incredible. I used it in combination with a 1.4x TC sometimes also. Granted, it costs $$$, and it's a modern AF lens. But if compact + stellar image quality is what you're after, you really need to consider this one. Except that it has an electronically controlled aperture, which probably makes adapting it to any non-Nikon camera difficult unless you only plan to use it wide open. Regardless, I am constantly wowed by the quality and love that it fits in my regular bag, beside my 35 and 50, like it's just any other lens!


PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Somehow I've managed to become the new home for all three generations of the Sigma 400mm f5.6 lens: the older ø72 non-APO, the first-generation ø72 APO, and the final ø77 APO Macro. The first is pretty beat-up but still serviceable, although manual focus action leaves a lot to be desired since it's an AF lens. The second is in great mechanical condition but there's grease condensation on one of the middle elements. I've seen some references on how to access this for cleaning, since it seems to be a common problem. The last is in great condition all around, which seems unusual since not only does this lens seem prone to haze internally, but the Zen finish is said to deteriorate and get gummy.

I'm planning to clean up the hazed one and then post some comparison shots, since The Internets don't agree on whether the third version is really shaper than the second or not. I'm pretty sure they're both sharper than my copy of the older one, though.