My next lens
 

Im needing to get something bigger than my 70-300 lens for my aircraft photography. I realy need something that will take me to 500mm.
I have 2 thoughts, the sigma 170-500.
Or the Nikon 100-400 with a 1.5x tele but i have herd that this lens will not take a tele convertor. If that is true can anyone recomend another lens that will go on my D50 of the same size.
Also i cant decide between the 170-500 or the 50-500 sigma lens.
What are peoples thoughts and experainces on these lenses, or do people have an altrenate suggestion.

I think the Sigma 170-500 has even slower AF than the Nikon 80-400, and thats saying something.

The Nikon 80-400 will work with a kenko teleconverter but AF will be unreliable, though VR still works.

I'd be more inclined towards leaving off a teleconverter... better to have good sharp shots and crop a little than something iffy but larger.

Sigma 50-500 is good (better than 170-500) but heavy, the Tamron 200-500mm may be best choice, as this is getting very good reviews for sharpness and it's easier to handhold.

Hopefully a real aviation photographer will chip in with some advice.

cheers,
Andy

You dont have to be a aviation photographer to give good advice. Any usefull advice is welcome. We all photograph different subjects and have different styles to out photography. I like that, it makes this forum what it is.

Looking online now the Tamron sounds a good idea for me. I whant to sometime add second body for static shots so im not having to change lenses all the time.

I used Nikon 80-400VR for a couple of years on a Fuji S2. Autofocus is slow but I managed to get lots of great pics when I did not appreciate autofocus speed. 80-400VR is a great lens especially between f8 and f11. The lens has a focus limit to reduce the amount of hunting that it did on S2 but when I switched body to a Nikon D2X hunting was a thing of the past. The only fault with the lens then was lack of resolution but on a D50 this will not be realised.

The next lens choice depends if you want quality or reach, reach is provided at an affordable price in the 50-500 especially if you seek a used copy, I did not find it heavy when I lifted with a Canon body attached. Quality is provided by changing the right lens in the right situation. Avoid zooms over 5X (50-500 sigma is 10X) as a prime will give best outright quality a short range zoom should be close. I use four lenses to cover that focal range :-

17-35 f2.8 - static/museum use
28-70 f2.8 static/museum use
70-200VR f2.8 - lumbering airliners and with 1.7TC, crowded airshows
200-400VR f4 - Nice airshows not too crowded
200-400VR f4 with TC on a clear day, special purpose such as moon!

I do not recommend anything over 400mm as keeping the thing steady and tracking even with monopod is difficult. As an experiment I kept 200-400VR at 300mm and more shots were sharp, as Andy suggests its better to crop than have something large but blurry.

I would save up for a 80-400VR as VR really helps achieve prop blur, would be a nice tool at OW.

I reckon the best lens for the flying component of airshows is 300 f2.8VR

Thank you for your advice there. the 80-400vr is a bit out of my budget new, but e-bay may help me there.

There's one just come in at Ffordes HERE

Thank you for the heads up.

Vibration Reduction (VR) is a useful aid to aviation photography. The ability to allow decent prop blur though slow shutter speed in confidence is important. I cannot imagine using a non VR lens now I have been spoilt by its advantages.

I had a sigma 170-500 for a couple of days before sending it back - it's not ultra heavy - AF is slow as might be expected - but it extends such a long way it's really uncomfortable to hold. A bit like trying to shoot handheld through a telescope! Not the best option I would think!!

How low will you drop your shutter speeds with VR? I dont go below 1/60th as i know i cant hold the camera steady. I also whant to work on my panning this year.

Andy makes a very important point here. Bigger is not better if you have poor quality glass on the camera. If you can afford to by-pass the sigma lens and go for the better optics of the Nikon it could save you money in the long run.

Most of the Sigma lens are made to a price and quality to under cut the prime manufacturers. With lens you do tend to get what you pay for. Unfortunately the good lens are very expensive and it can be a false economy to cut corners if you are striving for quality images. The Sigmas can give very passable results when stopped down to f11 or so.

My first telephoto zoom was a budget Canon 75-300. It was OK until I started to take bird photographs. It gave quite passable results if the light was good enough for a high shutter speed and stop down to f11 or more. In high contrast scenes it would colour fringe badly.

I wanted a better lens without paying a fortune. The Sigma 135-400 seemed to fit the bill although it was not highly recommended. I found a nearly new lens on e-bay. Well it solved the colour fringing problem and it seemed OK on my Canon 300D 6Mp. However, I can't say that the number of keepers increased with this lens. After upgrading the camera to the 20D 8Mp I noticed that the image sharpness was an issue.

So I bit the bullet and managed to source a second hand Canon 300 f4 L. The difference was quiet amazing. The number of keepers increased dramatically.

This evening I was trying my luck at getting inflight shots of Swift over my local lake. I used the last frame to take a snap of this passing aircraft.

Time 8.40 pm - 20D - 300mm IS f8 - 800 ISO - 1/250 sec Hand held.

This is a 100% crop or 1/20 of the image area.

If I had taken this with the Sigma 135-400 @ 400mm the shot would of been blurred and impossible to make out the detail on the tail. ( I was never able to get a decent aircraft flight shot with that lens )

Nikon claim VR technology will allow a photographer to shoot three stops lower. If you can shoot 1/60 then with VR 1/8 (approx) is, in theory possible. In reality if you can shoot aeroplanes at 1/60 then you should still use 1/60 and be confident you would have a greater number of keepers. Panning would be easier as vertical movement is automatically sensed and cancelled out. Sigma produce a version of 80-400VR called 80-400OS. Perhaps you could play the currency game when you are in the United States.

I will look at the prices of kit when i am over there. I was shooting all of Old Warden today at 1/125th so i look forward to seing my results.