chambeshi
Veteran Member
I have tested 2 Nikkor zooms against 2 primes toward answering my own questions as to how image quality varies at distance and in combination with a TC. After first batch testing in January on my D850, I then relied more on the Z7 to minimize focus-tuning bugs, and a TC2 works at f11 (at the extreme).
The lenses are:
300mm f/4 E PF VR Nikkor + TC14 III
400mm f/2.8E AF-S VR FL ED Nikkor
70-200mm f2.8E FL ED VRII Nikkor + TC2 III
80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR ED N NIKKOR
The standard subjects varies but I will post mostly results on a patchwork of printed targets, with patches of deer hair glued to 'the 4 points of the compass' (the body fur used for tying fishing flies), and a few suitable small mammals. These include my cats and their toys, notably "Fukomys", so named after the most diverse genus of our African molerats (one of the groups which I've studied for many years). They are rodents related to porcupines.
Fukomys is an ideal subject to test telephotos, being sown of rabbit skin stuffed with catnip..... These replicas are borrowed from my cats, who on occasion deign to attack Fukomys during the tests. So I have also captured quite a few series of cat portraits, when a felid obliged to stay in the camera frame, but they soon get distracted (!)
Here is the "testing range" and a couple of examples. The longest distance approximate the outermost maximum I'm forced to capture shy subjects or such like scenes. But i prefer to be as close as conditions permit:
Testing range - Gimpro on Gitzo 1543LS
20m 80-400 G f5.6 focused on target - low res image as example
400 f2.8E PL at 20m approx 1:1 crop
300 f4E PF+TC14 f5.6 Fukomys - 20m
300 f4E PF+TC14 f5.6 Fukomys at 20m 1:1 crop
The lenses are:
300mm f/4 E PF VR Nikkor + TC14 III
400mm f/2.8E AF-S VR FL ED Nikkor
70-200mm f2.8E FL ED VRII Nikkor + TC2 III
80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR ED N NIKKOR
The standard subjects varies but I will post mostly results on a patchwork of printed targets, with patches of deer hair glued to 'the 4 points of the compass' (the body fur used for tying fishing flies), and a few suitable small mammals. These include my cats and their toys, notably "Fukomys", so named after the most diverse genus of our African molerats (one of the groups which I've studied for many years). They are rodents related to porcupines.
Fukomys is an ideal subject to test telephotos, being sown of rabbit skin stuffed with catnip..... These replicas are borrowed from my cats, who on occasion deign to attack Fukomys during the tests. So I have also captured quite a few series of cat portraits, when a felid obliged to stay in the camera frame, but they soon get distracted (!)
Here is the "testing range" and a couple of examples. The longest distance approximate the outermost maximum I'm forced to capture shy subjects or such like scenes. But i prefer to be as close as conditions permit:
Testing range - Gimpro on Gitzo 1543LS
20m 80-400 G f5.6 focused on target - low res image as example
400 f2.8E PL at 20m approx 1:1 crop
300 f4E PF+TC14 f5.6 Fukomys - 20m
300 f4E PF+TC14 f5.6 Fukomys at 20m 1:1 crop
