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Shooting with such lenses as the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR hand-held requires a solid image stabilization system, because you are dealing with a relatively slow aperture and long focal length, which puts a heavy burden on the shutter speed and ISO performance of the camera. To be able to keep up with fast shutter speeds, you will find yourself pushing your camera’s ISO quite a bit if you don’t take advantage of image stabilization, which is why it is so important. As of November 2015, AF only works with the TC-14E on the D4, D4S, Df, D600, D610, D750, D800, D800E, D810, D810A, D7100 and D7200. Inside we have 19 elements in 12 groups, not exactly a price-sensitive design point when the front element alone is big enough to make the lens require 95mm filters. ED glass is used in three of the elements, and the lens is internally focusing (though it extends during zoom, fortunately without turning the front element). A 9-blade aperture diaphragm is used. You can mount a TC-14E on the 200-500mm and still have autofocus on most recent Nikon bodies (though it might be constrained to one or a few focus sensors). While you can mount the TC-17E or TC-20E converters on the lens, you won’t get reliable autofocus, if any autofocus at all. The Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f5.6E ED VR is a super-telephoto zoom designed for Nikon DSLRs. Announced in August 2015, it represents a new category in the Nikkor range, offering a super-telephoto range at a comfortably lower price than the existing AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR II not to mention a fraction of the high-end AF-S 200-400mm f4G VR, while out-reaching either of them. Indeed at first glance, the AF-S 200-500mm f5.6E would seem like a response to the popular 150-600mm zoom options from Sigma and Tamron which filled a gap missing from both Nikon and Canon’s catalogues. The price of the new Nikkor is also roughly similar to the higher-end Sports version of Sigma’s 150-600mm, but there are of course differences. Most obviously the Sigma and Tamron 150-600mm lenses start wider and end longer with a 4x range versus just 2.5x on the Nikkor. The Tamron lens is lower-priced too, as is the Contemporary version of the Sigma. On the other side of the coin, the Nikkor features a constant f5.6 focal ratio, compared to the f5-6.3 of the Sigma and Tamron. Nikon TC-20E III (400-1000mm): Slowing down the maximum aperture of the lens to f/11 and significantly reducing the amount of light passing through the lens, it is expected that the TC-20E III would be a bad candidate for the Nikon 200-500mm VR. While being able to reach 1000mm sounds appealing, autofocus is basically dead and you would have to use the manual focus ring to focus on the subject. Sharpness is so greatly impacted with this combo, that I did not bother testing the rig using test charts. I would strongly discourage using this particular combo, because it will only lead to frustration. Vibration Reduction / Image Stabilization Performance
They buy it to photograph their kids in organized sports, and either the kids stop playing or they realize they keep getting the same old shots. Longer teleconverters can severely impact autofocus accuracy! Also, because teleconverters effectively increase the focal length of a lens, there is also the added problem of the longer focal length – one has to know how to handle such issues as atmospheric haze, camera shake (see article on reciprocal rule), image stabilization and proper camera + lens handling. In short, the longer the lens, the more the potential problems. NIKON D750 + 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 1250, 1/1000, f/8.0 It’s an FX-format lens, so it’ll work perfectly on full frame cameras. Crop sensor cameras (DX) will see an increase in the reach of this lens. More information on how FX and DX cameraswork is available in this tutorial.
This is a real thing, but not a terribly bad thing. When I could keep my subject perfectly held on the focus sensor, the 200-500mm had no problems at all keeping up with some pretty fast and often swerving subjects. Were I on a gimbal mount on a tripod, I’m not sure I would have noticed this focus difference. But frankly, what are we expecting out of a five-pound lens? That’s a lot of weight to keep steady out in front of you handheld, proper shooting technique or not.
It is impressive that Nikon was able to come up with a constant aperture lens design for such a long zoom lens. Lenses of similar class we have seen in the past from Tamron ( SP 200-500mm f/5-5.3 Di LD) and Sigma ( 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM), as well as the newer 150-600mm variants, all have variable apertures from short to long end of the range (f/5 to f/6.3), so the Nikkor 200-500mm is the first of its kind. Image sharpness depends more on you than your lens, and lens sharpness doesn't mean much to good photographers. It's the least skilled hobbyists who waste the most time blaming fuzzy pictures on their lenses, while real shooters know that few photos ever use all the sharpness of which their lenses are capable due to subject motion and the fact that real subjects are rarely perfectly flat.
Performance
Since there is no external light source (such as flash) use shutter speeds from 1/30th to 1/60th of a second Gently push or wriggle the extendable front tube of the lens IN about halfway, you should see a screw in each of the rectangular holes of the zoom ring. For me, one of the screws was not there (allowing the nut to jam the lens), but running around free within the lens. Remove those 3 screws (CAUTION - after the last screw is removed, the front tube of the lens is free to detach from the rest of the lens!) Dates, 29 October 2015. Nikon D810, Nikon 200-500mm VR at 500mm, f/11 at 1/30 hand-held at Auto ISO 100. bigger or camera-original 36MP file to explore on your computer (most portable devices can't show all the pixels in the full resolution file).
Otherwise I'd use a German brass 95mm B+W 010 UV MRC filter or Japanese aluminum 95mm Hoya EVO UV to protect this lens. Both have special dirt, dust and smudge resistant multicoatings to stay cleaner longer, so it's your choice of brass or aluminum. The 95mm Hoya HMC filter is also superb, but doesn't have the fancy crud-resistant coatings.Perfect means perfect viewed at 100% on-screen. When seen at normal sizes, I can shoot even slower.
Palm, 29 October 2015. Nikon D810, Nikon 200-500mm VR at 500mm, wide-open at f/5.6 at 1/250 hand-held at Auto ISO 100. bigger or camera-original 36MP file to explore on your computer (most portable devices can't show all the pixels in the full resolution file). The great news is that unlike Nikon's G (gelded) lenses that won't work at all on older 35mm cameras, this "E" lens works fine with all 35mm and digital Nikons made since 1959, so long as you shoot it at f/5.6. This isn't a problem since this lens is usually shot wide-open at f/5.6 anyway. But if you know you'll be mainly be at the longer end, it'll likely make you happy. Also: Against the 200-400 and those expensive primes, the 200-500 is not going to be at that pro level for AF on moving targets.I was particularly keen to test this lens because my main weapon of choice is the Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 lens. It’s a professional level telephoto, and it was a little surprising to see Nikon offer a much cheaper lens covering this range and more. Structure and Build When I buy good lenses like Nikon, Canon and LEICA, I know they will last me for decades, always working on my new cameras and repairable if it breaks. We didn't actually know exactly what we wanted it for, we just knew that we wanted one. . I got the impression watching college students that this mindset was pretty much the norm for newly minted amateurs. The lens has 3 ED glass elements. ED glass element helps in reducing chromatic aberrations and offers overall better image quality. Minimum focusing distance I was also pleased to see that the minimum focusing distance is 2.2 metres (just 20cm more than the 200-400mm). I was expecting this to be somewhere closer to 3 metres, so that was a nice surprise.
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