In late August, Nikon released several new products that are smaller, lighter, and feature great advancements. One of those products has found its way to me. My new Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR arrived before noon on Saturday, just in time to accompany me to Alaska to photograph moose.
At half the length and slightly more than a third of the weight, my new 500mm lens will replace Big Bertha, my beloved 600mm lens which accompanied me to Alaska two years ago. I have taken many remarkable photographs with Big Bertha and some of my all-time favorites are among them. But I know that this smaller, lighter, lens will serve me well and I look forward to taking many photographic journeys with it. Losing weight from my camera rig is a good thing. I have managed to schlep the big lens and heavy tripod on my shoulder over lots of terrain in many states in the US and in several countries outside the US, but I look forward to more photographic adventures using a lighter rig.
I didn’t have much of a chance to test out the new lens until late and I noticed that the moon was in the waxing gibbous phase which is not quite full. I used my Nikon D500, new 500mm lens, 1.4X teleconverter, and set the camera to high speed crop so I had about a 1000mm reach at f/16, ISO 100, 1/80 second shutter. Here’s Saturday evening’s waxing gibbous moon.
