The Heritage Flight Conundrum led to my first acquisition of a used piece of camera equipment. Specifically a 80-400 lens. A new Nikon edition goes for $2300.
The 200-500 is a great lens. But. It's 5 pounds to sling around. It's a bit bulky to handle. I could have used it in Charleston, only if I could put it down on occasion. And it might be intimidating to the security folks. The lens I used on the D500, 70-300 is OK. Nice and light but I still end up cropping too much. Could have used just a little extra reach on the C47/C17 Heritage Flight.
Enter the 80-400. On the D500, it will give me an effective 600 mm reach. And it comes in at 3.5 pounds. After 3 hours in the sun, that 1.5 pound savings will be a lot.
The 200-500 is a fixed f/5.6 where as the 80-400 is a f/4.5-5.6, so no real winners there.
Even though the 200-500 is sold as a hand hold-able lens, my best shots seem to have one common element, a monopod. The 80-400 is made to be hand hold-able.
I did some research on KEH, mostly through threads on UHH. No real negative complaints. And so far I don't have any. I bought a lens that was graded very highly. When I looked at it today, no blemishes at all. I took it out to the Park for a few test shots. No cracks on an inner lens. But all my shots were static. I'll take it out to a nature refuge this weekend. If I can, I work in on both the D500 and D850.
So far the transaction with KEH was great. Let's see if the lens can match.
No comments:
Post a Comment