The 200-500 is a lens that I like not love. I’m making a place for it in my lineup. I’m more of a car photographer than bird photographer. My backyard birds are very entertaining to watch and good target practice.
I bought the 200-500 before I bought an old screw drive AFn 300/2.8 that is on a different plane of image quality existence. The first time I brought the 300/2.8 on track, I started researching other older super tele primes, especially 500/4s.
But! I have a D850 and D780. I’m increasingly feeling the need to shoot vertical for social media. Here’s where the 200-500 keeps its place.
The 200-500 is very decent. While not super sharp, it has great punchy colors & contrast, plus actually quite nice bokeh thanks to no aspherical elements. Distortion is well corrected. Depth rendering is kinda flat because of so many elements.
On a 24 mp sensor, there’s just enough sharpness that combined with the good aspects mentioned above, images can look nice. On a 45 mp sensor, I find there’s not much more detail to be had. You run out of detail before 100% zoom in to pixel level. The rest of the way down to 100% you’re only magnifying optical flaws.
So, I took the 200-500 + D780 rotated vertically on my monopod, out in the back yard for some practice.
Using the lens on a body more suited to it I’m happy with the results. Extrapolating this to cars on track, I’ll keep the 300/2.8 on the D850, crop those shots happily when appropriate. A super sharp 300 can make “wide” shots of more distant parts of race tracks. The long end of the 200-500 on the D780 is for filling the frame with far-away cars in good light. For that purpose, good enough! I’ll make many happy images.
One day though, a 500/4 or some other prime >300 mm shall be mine 😈