First shots from the 200-400 f/4 VR...

[binary visions]

Jenn came in and told me to grab my new lens this past weekend... Went outside to discover maybe 200 cedar waxwings stripping all of our holly bushes of berries. Never seen anything like it. My car looked like a victim of a disgusting paintball war since they would eat and then go sit in the tree that extended over my hood.

The light was pretty poor (too bright outside the bushes, too dark inside) but I was happy with the performance of the new lens. Just some cropping and resizing... might do some editing at some point since I think a few of these would clean up well.

[jonKranked]

pretty cool, bird nerd

[stevew]

i feel for your car....

[AngryMetalsmith]

Amazing detail. How far away were you and what body were you using ?

[binary visions]

Maybe 20 ft., and I was using my trusty D300.

[narlus]

nice!

switch to canon and you can get a 1.4TC built-in (at a very dear price, i'm sure)
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/R...ns-Review.aspx

[binary visions]

I've been reading about that... Projected to be almost twice the price and a pound heavier too. Hope the IQ is pretty tremendous. There are some more expensive Nikkors, too, of course.

[Andyman_1970]

200-400 f/4 is my "dream" lens for shooting aircraft. Great shots!!!

[binary visions]

Thanks Andy. It's a pretty sweet lens. Probably not a permanent part of my collection - I bought it to bring it on safari this summer. If I were to drop this kind of coin on a lens permanently, it'd more likely be a 500mm f/4.

Here's a crop/edit of the first shot. Amazing how much detail was waiting to be pulled out with some sharpening.

[Polandspring88]

Drool. How I'd love to play with one of those for a bit. Nice pics.