On 2008-07-21 12:27:14 +0100, Huge said:

On 2008-07-21, Andy Hall wrote:

That 500mm prime lens is becoming ever more tempting.

I have a 300mm in a Nikon DX (so, the equivalent of a 450mm in 35mm) and it
isn't long enough for decent bird piccies.

I know. I was thinking about perhaps using the 300mm plus a 1.7
teleconverter with a DX. In principle that should be reasonable
although not quite as good as a prime. This has the advantage of
being somewhat less massive than the 500mm, both on weight and price.



I'd go longer than 500mm.

There's 600mm from Nikon but it's a very large beast. I suppose
500mm with 1.4 could be an option. I'm currently using a DX format
camera (D300) but am thinking about getting a D3.


When I was
still using 35mm film equipment I had a 1000mm catadioptric (aka "mirror lens")
for bird piccies and I even used an optical doubler with it sometimes.

Was this good? Mirror lenses seem to have fallen out of favour.



BTW, can anyone recommend a decent Nikon DX macro lens?

Do you specifically want a DX lens? I have the Nikon 105mm and that
gives excellent macro results as well as being a respectable walking
around short telephoto. They do do a 60mm as well, which is a
little less expensive. However, on trying both, I preferred the 105
because of being able to be a bit further away and the VR capability
which is useful on occasions e.g. hand held shots in low light.


I was taking piccies, or
rather trying to, of cinnabar moth caterpillars at the weekend and I could do
with one.

Some form of support or clamp for the plant is a real help. One
could improvise something, but I needed to send an order to Wimberley
in the U.S. so it was easy to add their Plamp to this.

I've been doing quite a bit of macro work lately. Apart from the
standard and obvious flowers and insects, there are plenty of other
subjects such eyes of animals.