I’ve been shooting wildlife since 2015. I was working in Chennai as a software engineer and the only wildlife that was accessible to me was the local zoo and the nearby lake. At the time, the longest lens I could afford was the mighty 18-140mm kit lens that came with my Nikon D7100. That’s an effective focal length of 210mm, a focal length barely enough for zoos and the boldest wildlife. That lens was so short that I couldn’t even see which bird I was shooting until I took a picture and zoomed in to 100%. Not to mention the barely visible bokeh at f5.6 and the loss of detail after heavy cropping. The only good that came out of using that lens was that I was forced to learn how to get closer to wildlife without disturbing them, a skill I’m grudgingly thankful for 8 years later. For a few months, I got a chance to use a friend’s 70-300mm lens and for the first time I could actually see what I was shooting (turns out they were terns and cormorants). I did however manage to produce some half-decent pictures out of that 70-300.
Fast forward a few years, after sacrificing my soul and wallet to the focal length gods, I bought the Nikon 500mm PF f5.6 lens. Now,
I can see the strands that make up one feather!!
*shivers*. Btw, I just googled what that strand is called – Barb. Gone are the days when I could comfortably blame my lens if I couldn’t get a good picture. Now it’s MY fault. It was time to take some accountability and learn to tame this beast. Before I tell you what I’ve learnt, let’s get some technical things out of the way –
Technical Specifications
- This lens is optically perfect. I mean, look at this MTF chart. Those lines can’t get any straighter.
- It’s 237mm in length and weighs 1.46Kg (3lb 3.5oz). That, from what I’ve read from the raving reviews online, is not a lot for a 500mm f5.6 lens. I’ll get to that.
Learnings
- I found out why the rule of thumb, using a shutter speed faster than 1/(focal length), is only a rule of thumb. I have to use a lot more than that to freeze action. The lens is sensitive to even the tiniest movements. So, I have gotten into the habit of holding my breath while I press the shutter.
- This lens may be lighter than a typical 500mm lens, but I start feeling the weight after an hour or two. I guess this is because I’ve always carried cheap featherweight barely telephoto lenses. If I want to last the whole day, I need to find places to rest my elbow while I’m shooting (sometimes that’s my moderate belly). Else my shoulder starts to ache.
- For the first time in my life, I have a new problem. This lens is so long that I can’t find the bird in the viewfinder. I laugh every time this happens. Since this isn’t a zoom lens, I can’t just zoom out, find the bird and zoom back in again. So, I have to move my eye away from the viewfinder to check if the bird is even there. But I’ll get used to it. I would rather have this problem than not being able to identify which bird I’m shooting.
- The long focal length combined with the fact that I’m not used to its weight makes it difficult to track birds. Here I would like to lay a tiny bit of blame on my d7100’s ‘meh’ continuous AF. I believe this will also come with practice. I can still shoot stationary birds to my heart’s content.
- The bokeh at f5.6 is good but not great. If the bird is sitting in trees, with lot of branches around it, the bokeh can look distracting. So, I’ve gotten used to paying more attention to the background. Also, I cannot afford the 500 f4 lens since someone decided to put way too many zeroes on the price tags (10,000+ dollars? Seriously!?!?).
So, there you go. 5 things I learnt using a 500mm lens for the first time. If you’re planning to buy a 500mm lens, I hope you found this useful or at least entertaining. Below are a few pictures I took at the Bronx Zoo using the 500mm f5.6 PF and the D7100.
