Birding lenses for the Nikon D850
UltraWide, wide, normal, and telephoto...zooms, of course!!!
When we first acquired the new-to-us Nikon D850 body from a local wedding photographer who was upgrading to the Nikon Z, it came with its original accessories—manual, strap, etc.—but nothing else. Some of our lenses (50mm, 18-55mm, 18-300mm) for the DX bodies (D40, D90) work with the D850, but the DX lenses are not able to take full advantage of the D850’s much bigger 46MP sensor.
The D850 will recognize that a DX lens is being used, and adjust accordingly. While the images shot using the 18-300mm DX zoom were good, we realized that we would need to up our lens game to get the most out of the D850 body.
One handsome fella, living right there in the RainyDayGarden!
We turned off the camera’s auto-cropping for DX to show the vignetting…and what we were missing by not using a full-frame lens. The center of the photo is amazingly detailed. The edges not so much.
So cute – the lens clearly shows the enormity of the cuteness.
The Lenses
After a lot of research and deliberation, we decided to look for the following Nikkor lenses to complement the D850:
We decided against prime lenses because we’re going to use them for outdoor birding-related photography. We needed the flexibility and reach without the hassle of constantly switching lenses.
It took us about five months of scouring Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and other forums to find the lenses we wanted at a price point within our budget.
Lens success!
Nikkor professional-grade lenses are heavy, but well built. They are also not inexpensive. The combined cost of all the lenses if we had purchased them new would be around $6800. Used, we were able to do much better! And because Nikon built these lenses for working pros, they don’t suffer from wear and tear the way the less rugged aftermarket brands do. Sure there were some dings, scratches and nicks, but everything we got were still in “like new” condition in terms of optics and mechanicals!
Fantastic, just fantastic.
Besides the lower price, another benefit of buying pre-owned gear is the extras that sometimes come with them. A few of the lenses came with protective UV filters. One had camo-sleeve already installed. Two sellers even tossed in tele-converters!
When you need to see things that are really far away even “up closer…”
The Case
Normally we haul our gear around in a Pelican case with custom-fit Pick-N-Pluck foam, but as we would be using this gear for birding, we decided to try something different, and looked for a protective case that would not take up a lot of room. Fortunately for us, a case which exactly fit our needs came up for sale locally: a Hakuba hard aluminum camera case.
Oh, we are going to be very good friends, indeed.
This hard case is designed for top loading, is fully lined, and has movable padded dividers. It is NOT waterproof like Pelican cases, but it is perfect for safely transporting all of the lenses.
“We’re going on a field trip!”
The exterior is made of aluminum, has starburst riveting, braced hinges, and reinforced corners. It is strong enough to stand on, the latches are one-touch lockable, and can be carried using a shoulder strap or the handle on the lid.
It’s possible James Bond had one of these, but his would’ve been filled with martini-making ingredients…
FinalThoughts
What’s better than shopping for gear? Learning about and using new-to-us gear! Of course we didn’t wait around until we had everything before we took them for a spin: we started shooting with each new lens as soon as we forked over the cash to the seller!
In an upcoming post, we’ll show some of our FirstUse results from each of lenses, what we learned, and how we think we’ll be using them through out this “year of birding.”
Links to items mentioned:
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