To crop or to zoom

I

Inbred29

Messages
51
Name
Garry
Edit My Images
Yes
Currently using a Nikon 70-300VR on a D80 and whilst it is a very good lens i still am cropping a bit to get the subject to not appear lost in the frame.
If i upgraded to something like a Sigma 150-500 would the images be "better" than the cropped images from a 70-300. And would the f6.3 at the 500 end be that noticeable or would i have to push the ISO to unuseable limits?
Uses are mainly wildlife plus also occasional airshows. Budget cannot be pushed to a "fast zoom" unfortunately.

Regards
 
I think the extra reach would definitely give better results than cropping the 70-300 when shot from the same position, although you may need to stop down to F8 at 500mm to get the best results. In poor light I would expect the F6.3 maximum aperture to adversely affect AF speed and accuracy. This is something that increasing iso cannot fix.
 
As long as the lens is any good then zooming will be better than cropping. Have you tried stopping down on the 70-300 as it works best between f/9 to f/10 at 300mm. It is however still quite soft at full zoom so you may well be better off going Sigma - No VR though so tripod essential.
 
Many thanks for the replies.

DonnaM - Will try the stopping down on the 70-300 but with regard to the Siggy I think that the 150-500 is OS (ie VR)
 
Garry, you're right, the Sigma 150-500 is an OS lens. I use one on both my D700 and D70 and it AFs perfectly well on both. Faster on the D700 (IIRC, that has a better AF module) but acceptably fast on the D70 as well. It's not quite as fast to aquire focus on (say) a brown bird against a background of branches as the 70-300 VR Nikkor but it does get there, usually before the b****r flies away! The slowness of it at its widest can be a pain, especially if the subject's moving but up the ISO a notch or 2 (do some test shots to see at what ISO the noise starts to really bother you when images are printed) and you can get shutter speeds fast enough to freeze most things.
 
Cheers Nod. That's encouraging that you've used it on a D70, I didn't know if the D80 would handle it or if noise would become a serious problem.
 
Noise can be reduced with software, with a little loss of fine detail if overdone. As I said, do some test prints at high ISO settings and see at what point YOU find the noise detracts from the picture. I find that on the D70, I can go up to 800 and not worry too much - if I need higher, I use the D700 and just don't worry as long as I'm not using Hi!
 
Now that I know how to ETTR I don't feel I even need to use NR at ISO 1600 on my 450D (that's as high as it goes) and as far as I know that is considered a fairly 'noisy' body by the masses.
 
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