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So I decided to rent a Nikon 200-500 f5.6 zoom lens from LensesForHire, a special 3-day hire covering 12 days over the xmas period.
I am not really a 'reviewer' but I though that some comments on my experience might prove useful or of interest to others
First a word on LensesForHire ... the booking process on their website was easy to use and I had a choice of how I wanted to receive/return the lens, I could collect/return personally, have it sent to me and arrange my own return, or have it sent to me and returned by courier collection. I chose the latter option and had the lens delivered to my home, it was securely contained in a Peli-type case with foam insert. with plastic security tags to indicate any tampering and inside contained the necessary paperwork and lens manual.
On inspection I found that one of the small securing lugs on the inside of the lens hood had been broken off and when first used I noticed a small crack in the hood, these were only noticeable by careful checking and I think confirms the comments I have read in the reviews of the flimsy and somewhat irritating design/construction of the hood for this lens.
At the end of my hire period the lens was collected as agreed by the courier and in both deliver and collection I was sent a text giving a delivery time slot of 1 hour, which was very useful. I was provided with additional plastic security tags for the return and a pre-printed return label to affix to the peli-type case.
All in all the hire went as well as I could have expected and the additional hire length was a very nice bonus.
The Nikon 200-500 f5.6 is a substantial zoom lens and not a lens I could hand-hold for extended periods of time, on my first time out I carried it on a shoulder strap from the tripod foot with my Nikon D500 attached. I took some shots hand-held but the majority were taken with the assistance of a large beanbag. For my remaining trips out I used my monopod and found this to be an excellent way of using the lens, the monopod taking the weight of the kit and me being able to manoeuvre it to shoot whatever I wanted. A caveat here, I am 70 years old and I am sure that younger, fitter togs would be able to manage this lens with greater ease than I could.
I had read reports of the AF being relatively slow with this lens but even though almost every day I had available to use it was gloomy, I did not find this to be particularly the case, I can't say that I ever missed focus with the bare lens on my D500. On the subject of the D500, the two pieces of kit seemed to work very well together, it just seemed that the lens brought out the very best of the D500 and vice versa, I was very pleased with the way it rendered even higher ISO images, even up to ISO12800.
I did get the opportunity to try the lens with both my TC 14-eii and TC 17-eii and these gave me a minimum aperture available of f8 and f9.5 respectively.
Surprisingly I found that the D500 was able to AF even at f9.5, although at times a little sluggish in the gloomy light I was working in (overcast cloud and rain) and I would have liked the opportunity to have used both in good light as I think I might have been surprised, I don't think I would hesitate to use the TC 14eii where I had reasonable light to do so as AF still seemed quite snappy.
One odd experience I had on each occasion that I used the lens was that it would very occasionally (sometimes 3 or 4 times, other times just once in the day) randomly switch from my default Group Area-AF to Single-Point AF, with out any input from me. I never discovered the reason for this anomaly, so I don't know whether it was the lens or the body or the combination of the two, but I am pretty certain it wasn't me and it has never happened with any other lens I have used ... no other TP users appear to have experienced this issue either.
There are three downsides to the Nikon 200-500 f5.6.
It should be noted that the 200-500 does not have any particularly effective weather-sealing so that should be factored into its use, a suitable rain cover/flexible 'lenscoat' is advisable if using outdoors in adverse weather conditions.
I am not really a 'reviewer' but I though that some comments on my experience might prove useful or of interest to others
First a word on LensesForHire ... the booking process on their website was easy to use and I had a choice of how I wanted to receive/return the lens, I could collect/return personally, have it sent to me and arrange my own return, or have it sent to me and returned by courier collection. I chose the latter option and had the lens delivered to my home, it was securely contained in a Peli-type case with foam insert. with plastic security tags to indicate any tampering and inside contained the necessary paperwork and lens manual.
On inspection I found that one of the small securing lugs on the inside of the lens hood had been broken off and when first used I noticed a small crack in the hood, these were only noticeable by careful checking and I think confirms the comments I have read in the reviews of the flimsy and somewhat irritating design/construction of the hood for this lens.
At the end of my hire period the lens was collected as agreed by the courier and in both deliver and collection I was sent a text giving a delivery time slot of 1 hour, which was very useful. I was provided with additional plastic security tags for the return and a pre-printed return label to affix to the peli-type case.
All in all the hire went as well as I could have expected and the additional hire length was a very nice bonus.
The Nikon 200-500 f5.6 is a substantial zoom lens and not a lens I could hand-hold for extended periods of time, on my first time out I carried it on a shoulder strap from the tripod foot with my Nikon D500 attached. I took some shots hand-held but the majority were taken with the assistance of a large beanbag. For my remaining trips out I used my monopod and found this to be an excellent way of using the lens, the monopod taking the weight of the kit and me being able to manoeuvre it to shoot whatever I wanted. A caveat here, I am 70 years old and I am sure that younger, fitter togs would be able to manage this lens with greater ease than I could.
I had read reports of the AF being relatively slow with this lens but even though almost every day I had available to use it was gloomy, I did not find this to be particularly the case, I can't say that I ever missed focus with the bare lens on my D500. On the subject of the D500, the two pieces of kit seemed to work very well together, it just seemed that the lens brought out the very best of the D500 and vice versa, I was very pleased with the way it rendered even higher ISO images, even up to ISO12800.
I did get the opportunity to try the lens with both my TC 14-eii and TC 17-eii and these gave me a minimum aperture available of f8 and f9.5 respectively.
Surprisingly I found that the D500 was able to AF even at f9.5, although at times a little sluggish in the gloomy light I was working in (overcast cloud and rain) and I would have liked the opportunity to have used both in good light as I think I might have been surprised, I don't think I would hesitate to use the TC 14eii where I had reasonable light to do so as AF still seemed quite snappy.
One odd experience I had on each occasion that I used the lens was that it would very occasionally (sometimes 3 or 4 times, other times just once in the day) randomly switch from my default Group Area-AF to Single-Point AF, with out any input from me. I never discovered the reason for this anomaly, so I don't know whether it was the lens or the body or the combination of the two, but I am pretty certain it wasn't me and it has never happened with any other lens I have used ... no other TP users appear to have experienced this issue either.
There are three downsides to the Nikon 200-500 f5.6.
- The tripod foot is of the usual pathetic Nikon standard, only worse ... it has only one fixing hole so okay for a monopod but hopeless for fixing an Arca-Swiss plate to use on a gimbal etc. Kirk do a replacement (currently out of stock in the UK it seems) at a cost of around £170, a not so insignificant surcharge to use the lens efficiently on a tripod.
- The zoom ring has a very long length of travel to zoom from 200mm to 500mm and back, I could not accomplish that in a single action, needing to take several turns of the ring to do it, not ideal if needing to zoom in or out with speed.
- The lens hood some say is of light construction to avoid an imbalance on the lens, that may well be but it is a flimsy bit of kit and irritating to both fit and remove, especially to reverse, (though the actual damage to this particular hood may have been a contributory factor to my frustration). Added to this is the fact that if one did sustain damage to the lens hood they do not seem very freely available in order to obtain a replacement, surprising as I am sure there must be a number of broken ones out there. I have heard reports of gaffer tape and velcro being used in an effort to keep hoods attached, hardly a good recommendation for the design/construction.
It should be noted that the 200-500 does not have any particularly effective weather-sealing so that should be factored into its use, a suitable rain cover/flexible 'lenscoat' is advisable if using outdoors in adverse weather conditions.
) so the lack of weatherproofing is a disadvantage in the rainforest. I have both TC14 and TC17 Mk2 so an appraisal of the performance with both is very much appreciated.
