Recommended Nikon lens for BIF

[Jay Sheinfield]

I shoot a D3s and have tried my Nikon 200-400mm f/4 for BIF, but find it quite heavy/bulky after a bit. Any experience with other Nikon lens..............how about the 300mm f/4?

Thanks, Jay

[Desmond Chan]

I shoot a D3s and have tried my Nikon 200-400mm f/4 for BIF, but find it quite heavy/bulky after a bit. Any experience with other Nikon lens..............how about the 300mm f/4?

Thanks, Jay

If you are shooting hand-held and your physical condition allows, you just have to keep at it and you will be strong enough to move the 200-400 around with ease in no time. Doing some strength training exercises on the side will help, too. Once you are able to do that, shooting 500f4 hand-held is no longer a problem.

If you find the 200-400 too heavy for you for shooting hand-held, I suppose you may also find 300f2.8 heavy, too, even though it's a pound lighter than the 200-400 and shorter. Personally I find it more maneuvrable than the 200-400.

Don't really have experience with shooting BIF 300f4 but certainly it's much lighter and smaller. I heard that the AF is not as fast. But, some use it to shoot purple martins with success.

I use all kinds of lenses (from 85 mms and up) to shoot BIF depending on what I have at that time and where the subjects are.

[Nancy A Elwood]

Jay I have to agree with you. I tried handholding my 500 but unless you are out 5 days a week for a few hours to maybe get used to it, it never got me very good results. Also, in trying to hold it steady while you are waiting for the action became VERY tiring. The 300 f/4 is a very nice lens. When not using my 500, I use and get very good results with the Nikon 70-300VR.

[Gene Potter]

High Jay, Have a look at this. It’s light and performs very well. I started with the earlier production model of this lens and loved it. I now shoot with the 200-400 and 400 f2.8. I really love these too but both are monsters to carry for any length of time. Good used lenses like this can be found at KEH.
Good Luck
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...kor_300mm.html

[Norm Dulak]

Don't really have experience with shooting BIF 300f4 but certainly it's much lighter and smaller. I heard that the AF is not as fast. But, some use it to shoot purple martins with success.

I own this lens and have had some success with it photographing purple martins in flight. I suspect that capturing images of slower birds like great blue herons and great egrets would be a piece of cake, because the lens has the Nikon AF-S system. Most importantly, it weighs only 3.1 pounds. And the Nikon TC-14E II 1.4X AF-S, AF-I teleconverter brings the focal length to 420 mm and maintains autofocusing, while sacrificing only one stop of light and adding only 7 ounces to the weight. The only problem is that the lens lacks VR, so up that shutter speed!

[Tony Whitehead]

Jay, I find the 70-200 f2.8 with a 1.4x or 1.7x TC is a nice combo for BIF. I use this when the 200-400 or 500 are on the long side for the action.