500mm Wildlife lens review: Nikon 500mm f/5.6E PF vs Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E

nikon brought us out to florida for a press event for the nikon g6 but while i was here i thought i'd borrow the 200 500 and a new 500 millimeter f56 to see which was a better lens for a wildlife photographer something I'm really passionate about and Nikon is my favorite platform the D 500 is amazing especially at that price point and if you have the budget the D 850 is really the best wildlife camera ever in my opinion this 200 to 500 is a great value at $1,400 and it's what we've been recommending for a long time but until this 500 f56 came along at $3,500 $3,600 you really had to jump all the way to eleven twelve thousand dollars to get the very expensive and heavy 500 millimeter f4 so this is a really great compromise and in fact it's smaller and lighter than the 200 to 500 zoom net is a big deal because you can now handhold it much better you can attract moving Birds for a longer because your arms will get tired that means more of you can travel without having to bring a monopod or some other type of camera support I really really like a light lens the only comparable lens is really the Canon 400 millimeter f56 which is very very old a little bit shorter and lacks stabilisation both these lenses are stabilized so this lens the cheaper one is a zoom and usually that means it's the lower quality like primes of the same focal length they're almost always sharper so it's pretty much a given that this one's sharper but I did test it so let's take a look at those shots side by side to see which is sharper the 500 millimeter prime is sharper than the zoom as you'd expect I'm just showing one sample but I looked at several hundred to draw this conclusion with the prime even cropped deeper and share pictures even when you can't get as close as you'd like however you will always produce better results by using patience and planning to get close to your subject a patient photographer with the zoom will produce better results than an impatient photographer with the prime the 200 to 500 focus is much closer than the prime which will make a big difference for smaller animals when you can get that close on the 500 millimeter prime you need to add an extension tube to get closer we do that all the time but it definitely slows you down as you need to add and remove extension tubes to focus at different distance note that the 200 to 500 millimeter shot is getting darker despite using the same settings that's because all lenses lose light when focusing up close if I added extension to get the 500 millimeter that close it would also be darker both lenses have image stabilization but that doesn't mean they're equal I was able to consistently handhold the zoom at 500 millimeters and 1/100 of a second a little over two stops slower than the reciprocal roll I couldn't get sharp shots below 1/2 hundredth of a second with the prime which is strange with still subjects hand held the zoom will let you shoot a stop slower either giving you more depth of field or a full stop lower ISO and that adds more detail and reduces noise by half keep in mind this is the most extreme hand holding scenario high magnification with a forty five megapixel camera I also tested shooting both of them into the Sun to see what the contrast was like so let's take a look at those side-by-side in high contrast shots fringing was visible even after automatic software removal but it wasn't bad and there's no better option in this price range [Music] [Music] now of course the 200 to 500 has one really big advantage it can go all the way to 200 millimeters if you need to go wider here you just miss the shot but the thing is with wildlife it's not really a problem that you get too close to animals you pretty much are always trying to get closer and if you shoot the 200 500 for wildlife that bet almost all your pictures are at 500 millimeters so if you have the budget the 500 millimeter f56 is the better value or the better choice anyway but if you don't the 200 500 is still good the 500 millimeter prime focus noticeably faster than the zoom I would still pair either lens with a D 500 or D 850 DSLR depending on your budget but the z6 did an acceptable job of tracking moving subjects like this Kingfisher how do they each compare to the Sigma and Tamron say the 150 to 600 lenses I would definitely prefer to have a name brand lens that just for nikon but for canon and sony and every other brand because I find these third-party lenses just miss focus a lot because the manufacturers don't test the camera bodies with the lenses they're not officially supported and in my real-world experience they just tend to get more shots out of focus and that can be heart wrecking when you spend hours days weeks months years out in the field trying to track an animal and then you get your pictures back and you the light was perfect but everything's just a little bit out of focus it just missed the eye so for that reason I'm nowadays I'm sticking to name brand lenses and at this price point the 500l 5 6 is gonna open up professional-grade wildlife photography to a lot of photographers subscribe to see more camera reviews and tutorials and check out my book stunning digital photography specifically chapter 8 which will teach you all the most important things you need to know about wildlife photography if you have any follow-up questions about these two disaster the comments down below bye

Channel: Tony & Chelsea Northrup

Views: 133,596

Keywords: training, how-to, how, to, photography, tutorial, canon, nikon, dslr, stunning, digital, photo, picture, pictures, wildlife photography, sports photography, birding, nature photography, nikon d850, nikon d500, nikon 500 f/5.6, nikon 500 f5.6 pf, nikon 500mm pf, nikon 500mm f/5.6e pf, nikon 200-500mm f/5.6e vr, nikon 500mm vs nikon 200-500mm, comparison, wildlife lens, wildlife lens comparison, review, nikon 500mm pf review, nikon 200-500mm review, lens, lens review, wildlife lens review

Id: JZ9BKjjk5Zo

Length: 5min 32sec (332 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018