I posted these to show you that the 500 VR works okay with the 1.4 TC. this is not a canon vs. nikon or a see how good I am post, this is a brand new lens and there is almost zero said about it on the www, particularly with the 1.4 tc.

These BIF shots were taken at 700mm (500 vr + 1.4 TC). the pintails were were a long way out, so I did not expect much in the way of detail in the feathers. While they look okay, I dont think I want to keep using the TC on birds that fly 50mph! It's hard enough to find then in the viewfinder and keep them there let alone ad the limitations of a TC.

There is no post processing (sharpening, color, tone, levels, shadow, sharpening, fill, etc.) other than adding the watermark, cropping the pintail shots and compression.

The snow geese shots are not cropped, the pintails are cropped from 15 to 40%.

Wht the TC the focus still is fast, but it is more often fooled, and does not track as well as it the straight 500 VR with no TC. This I expected, but as you can see, the 1.4 is very usable on the 500 vr.





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if you have some pre-focus. Unfortunately, on my old 500 f4 AF-S I have to pre-focus manually. I assume the VR allows you to set the buttons on the lens to pre-focus?

Nice shot. It looks like the 1.7 has a tough time holding the background together, this is the same thing that happens when you put the 1.4 on the 200-400 vr. it looks too digital for my taste. . .

The 500 VR has a memory recall button that will allow you to set the memory and by using the small button near the mount the lens will kick back to the set focus area when pushed, no matter what's in the frame.

Those shots are from my first ever BIF outing. I've shot a few on off the cuff, but yesterday I went out intending to shoot the 500 vr with the 1.4 and birds. . .

I have the D2x & 500 afs and just got a 1.4 and was very disappointed in it for BIF, just hunts way to much, seems sharp enough when it finds focus, I'm just saving it back to try on slower moving subjects.

The D300 does much better. On the other hand, the D2X works just fine with my 300 2.8 VR and TC-14E.

Very nice. Don't see many pintails here in Va.

Do all of the focus points still work with the 1.4 on this lens? On the Canon bodies there is a fall off on the number of focus points as the lens goes over f/2.8 and AF shuts down completely after f/8.0.

nice shots...........

Hey Guys,

Very nice shots - from both Tony and Jim. Tony, the 3rd and 6th shots are by far my favorite of your group (well that is not true. I also really like the 1st and 4th). When I see shots like this, I always hope that somehow the ducks will cooperate and make their nearly perfect symmetry complete.

James