Nikon Longer Lenses and Zooms

Presently I shoot topside with my D200 and the 18-200. I would like to get something that goes a little longer for topside wildlife. I am planning trips next year to Turks for whalewatching and Galapagos. Any thoughts on longer lenses like the Nikon 300 or 200-400 zoom. Pricey I know, but hey, what's a man without his toys.

My arsenal includes the Nikon 70-200 VR, 200-400 VR and 600 f4 Af-S II. I use all of these lens' on the D200 with the TC-17x II teleconverter and receive excellent results. For travel, I'd recommend the 70-200 and 200-400 with the teleconverter. The 70-200 is primarily a hand held lens and depending on how good your technique is, the 200-400 is hand holdable as well. All of these lens' are tack sharp, fastand autofocus is super fast and smooth. The 200-400 and the 600 also produce a beautiful bokeh. One more thing to note as far as using the 1.7x teleconverter with the 200-400 and 600, AF and Vr work perfectly beyond the 5.6 aperture in all lighting conditions unless you're shooting a nuetral subject in very dim light with very little to no contrast, then it searches alot. Other than that, it works perfecty, even though Nikon says it won't work at all.

Hope this has helped,

Matt

Well if you are strong enought to handhold those lenses for hours then I'd get them. It depends on the type of boats you'll be on. A monopod will help but may not be convenient.

The 200-400VR is an amazing lense but also 7 lbs. It's fine in a game viewing vehicles. I had a friend schlep his 200-400VR for some birding and he was really tired at the end of the day. 2lbs out infront of you is a lot more than you think.

A word of caution on Monopod and boat, make sure your have the engine off, the vibration from these guys can ruin even the best image stabilisation system, I sometime use a flag carrying belt, just plug the monopod in place of the flagstaff and voila, if you fancy it, you can also run your colour at the same time .

IMO a 70-200 Vr is the best choice for marine mammal, unless you have a very steady (and big) boat and some pretty quiet water to work with any thing longer will be a handfull to master and you might just end up with more waste than gain. a longer lens is OK provided you give it support, a chap in France use a hook in the overhead ceiling of his cruiser and actually run a 600mm hanging from a rope attatched to an eye bolt on the rotated up side down tripod collar, His name is Phillipe Plisson and he as some awesome work on the web. http://uk.plisson.com/ being roped to the ceiling (or boom) give you the mobility of a ball head and get's rid of gravity.

check it out, ever since I saw his work 20 years ago I started carrying an eye bolt (1/4 " X 20) and a lenght of rope, not only for boating but tree branch ...

Thank you guys. My concern about the 200-400 is the weight. I think I may try to get my hands on one at the camera store before purchasing. The 300 is 1.5 pounds lighter and probably will work better with a TC