Reviewed by: Wayne Kliewer (Unique Photo Customer)
Profession: Research Chemist
Amateur Photography
Started in film with an Olympus OM-1.
Switched to digital with the Nikon D70S and now shoot with a Nikon D700.
All following photos courtesy of Wayne Kliewer.
 Cormorant with Needlefish taken at about 150 feet under really bad light; image was cropped.  Roseate Spoonbill at 300+ feet; cropped. Bird is drying its wings after bathing. It is easy to see the wet neck feathers, face and bill details, along with great detailing in the legs. This is a great example of what the Nikon 500mm F4 lens can do even on the first day of using such a long lens.  Great Egret turning to land under a bright sun.  Horrible light (light fog). This image of a Reddish Egret was taken with a Nikon D90, Nikon 500mm lens with 1.7X teleconverter. It has been heavily cropped.The image is a little soft due to the distance (at least 250 feet), the light fog, the teleconverter with autofocus, and movement on the tripod. Effective focal length was 1275 mm and cropped on top of that. This was a reject image for these reasons; however, under the conditions, I was surprised that the image was not a total disaster.  A Cormorant landing about 100 feet away with poor lighting conditions; image was cropped. |
I purchased the Nikon 500mm F4 lens (Unique Photo) in the fall of 2009 and received the lens one week before a vacation to Sanibel Island and the Ding Darling Preserve in early December 2009. Why the delay between the end of September and late November to get the Nikon lens? It seems that Nikon only makes a fairly limited number of these high-end lenses every year and they are possibly made in a single run; when they are gone, they are gone. Unique Photo jumped through hoops to get me this lens. If you want one of these masterpieces, order well in advance. The delay left time for only a few practice shots with the new lens and the upgraded support equipment such a lens requires (Gitzo tripod and leveling base; Wimberley gimbal tripod mount).
I had zero experience with a large lens like the 500mm F4 and minimal tripod experience. In addition, there was much angst as to air travel with this equipment. I added a Lowepro Vertex 300 backpack. With much rearrangement of the pack dividers, the lens fits in the pack with the D700 mounted, a Nikon 70-200mm F2.8, Nikon 1.7X teleconverter and assorted cleaning supplies and memory cards. The bag meets US airline restrictions for carry on and it traveled without any problems. The tripod was hand carried and stowed overhead without the Wimberley attached.
Ding Darling is a wonderful place to photograph herons, egrets, alligators, osprey, and countless other birds, reptiles, and mammals. The road in the preserve is about 4 miles long and is a one way street. This means that your photo set up gets moved a lot from one lagoon or mangrove channel to the next. Within a few moves, it was very easy to mount the big lens and D700 to the tripod, level and shoot. While not as mobile as a light lens and no tripod, it was a joy to use. Set up and relocation was very easy. Most of the images shot during the week were taken at F4 and the light varied from reasonable to very poor for photography.
The Nikon 500mm F4 images are very sharp and the detail captured is amazing. When a heron captured a shrimp, it was easy to see if the shrimp had its eyes open or closed. Images of little blue herons at 50 feet clearly showed mosquitoes on the bird, and some mosquitoes were clearly visible flying towards the birds (so clear that you could count the mosquito's legs and see the direction the head was facing). Focus was very fast and photographing flying birds was very easy.
Nikon claims that this lens will not autofocus with the 1.7X converter. That is correct with low light. It will autofocus with the available light once the sun has risen for a few hours. However, the autofocus with the 1.7X converter is too slow for rapidly moving subjects. Image quality remained fairly sharp with this converter attached and were much, much better than anticipated. The tripod vibration reduction setting works wonders. I also used the lens for hand held images. While a true handful, it is possible to hand hold and get great results with the vibration reduction set to normal. Subjects that were mostly dots in the viewfinder with the 70-200 were wonderfully detailed. Approximately 95% of the images on this trip were taken with the 500 mm lens.
I did not use all of the features included on the lens. I did not use the focus lock buttons or the limited focus range switch. Supposedly, that improves focus speed for more distant objects. It was already very fast and it already gave me the best tracking of any lens that I have used, so I did not see a big need for this feature. I did use the Nikon drop in circular polarizer. It worked very well. With the poor light conditions, however, I normally used the included plain glass filter.
There is a learning curve with high end, heavy glass like this great lens. Holding steady even on the tripod required good technique. If the subject allowed, locking the Wimberley into a fixed position helped with image sharpness. However, most of the images taken were with the head free to rotate in any direction. I did have some difficulties getting crisp images with long shutter speeds. I'm not sure if the culprit was mirror vibrations at the long shutter speeds, subject moving a small amount, or (most likely) bad technique on my part. Locking the tripod head with long shutter speeds did help improve the end result when shutter speeds dropped below 1/60 second.
The Nikon 500mm F4 has opened up completely new opportunities. Birds hunting crabs along the shoreline were the perfect subjects for portrait shots with this lens. Cormorants hunting for fish one hundred feet away showed wonderful detail with the Nikon lens.
The Nikon 500mm F4 images are very sharp and the detail captured is amazing. When a heron captured a shrimp, it was easy to see if the shrimp had its eyes open or closed. Images of little blue herons at 50 feet clearly showed mosquitoes on the bird, and some mosquitoes were clearly visible flying towards the birds (so clear that you could count the mosquito's legs and see the direction the head was facing). Focus was very fast and photographing flying birds was very easy.
Nikon claims that this lens will not autofocus with the 1.7X converter. That is correct with low light. It will autofocus with the available light once the sun has risen for a few hours. However, the autofocus with the 1.7X converter is too slow for rapidly moving subjects. Image quality remained fairly sharp with this converter attached and were much, much better than anticipated. The tripod vibration reduction setting works wonders. I also used the lens for hand held images. While a true handful, it is possible to hand hold and get great results with the vibration reduction set to normal. Subjects that were mostly dots in the viewfinder with the 70-200 were wonderfully detailed. Approximately 95% of the images on this trip were taken with the 500 mm lens.
I did not use all of the features included on the lens. I did not use the focus lock buttons or the limited focus range switch. Supposedly, that improves focus speed for more distant objects. It was already very fast and it already gave me the best tracking of any lens that I have used, so I did not see a big need for this feature. I did use the Nikon drop in circular polarizer. It worked very well. With the poor light conditions, however, I normally used the included plain glass filter.
There is a learning curve with high end, heavy glass like this great lens. Holding steady even on the tripod required good technique. If the subject allowed, locking the Wimberley into a fixed position helped with image sharpness. However, most of the images taken were with the head free to rotate in any direction. I did have some difficulties getting crisp images with long shutter speeds. I'm not sure if the culprit was mirror vibrations at the long shutter speeds, subject moving a small amount, or (most likely) bad technique on my part. Locking the tripod head with long shutter speeds did help improve the end result when shutter speeds dropped below 1/60 second.
The Nikon 500mm F4 has opened up completely new opportunities. Birds hunting crabs along the shoreline were the perfect subjects for portrait shots with this lens. Cormorants hunting for fish one hundred feet away showed wonderful detail with the Nikon lens.
This is the best lens that I have ever owned or used without any doubt. It cost a small fortune, but after the first morning photo session, the cost was never an issue again. The new opportunities and the incredible quality of the results have made this once-in-a-lifetime purchase one of my best decisions ever. Just remember, there can be a VERY LONG DELAY between placing the order and actually having this wonderful lens in hand. Order a long time before any special photo shoots you have planned.
Pros:
Incredible sharpness
Fast focus
Easy to work with and set up
Can be hand held for short durations
Travels well as carry on with the right backpack.
Cons:
$$$$
Requires good tripod and head for extended use.
Teleconverter autofocus is slow.
Agonizing delay in getting the lens after order.
Annoyances
Long delay in receiving the lens from Nikon.
Manual focus grip is located at midpoint of lens. It is easy to accidentally place a finger or hand on the manual focus grip during autofocus--part of the learning curve.
Hand-held and cropped to show eye detail.
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