Let's not mince words: if you have a small penis, this is the lens for you. It
costs and weighs about as much as a good used car, yet fits neatly into its own
special suitcase.
Fashion
Fashion
photographers are going for longer and longer lenses. The telephoto perspective
flattens facial features, an allegedly flattering thing when your subject is an
anorexic 17-year-old. An f/2.8 aperture at 300 or f/4 at 600 gives you a
depth-of-field that extends perhaps from the tip of the model's nose to the back
of her eyes. That will focus the viewer's attention on the model's face.
So if you want to be taken seriously as a 35mm fashion photographer, you have
to have at least a 300/2.8. Note the petulant yuppie at right with his
Nikon 600/4. He is so far from the model, though, that he has to use a radio to
communicate with her. Also, he has flown all the way down to South Beach (Miami
Beach, Florida) for this shot, but the 600/4 means the background will be
unparseable. He could have gotten the same image in a NY studio.
Note that none of the most famous fashion images were taken with lenses like
this. For one thing, most of them were done with medium and large format cameras.
Richard Avedon, for example, favors an 8x10 view camera. He'd need a 2000mm lens
on an 8x10 to get the same perspective afforded by a 300 on a Nikon. Such lenses
do not exist. It is possible to buy reasonably long lenses for
Hasselblads and Rolleis, but they aren't fast and they don't handle very well.
The standard 6x6cm fashion lens is the 150, which is equivalent to about a 90mm
lens on a 35mm camera.
Important details about photo at right: yuppie Reef Runner shoes on
photographer, assistant holding reflector to fill harsh shadows on model, Gitzo
tripod (of course), annoyed expression on face of photographer (I'd shown up
about 15 seconds before with my
Rollei 6008,
50mm lens, and Velvia). The photos below are snapshots I took on my way to Alaska
when I happened to have an 8008/300 combo handy on the back seat of my car.
Animals
You'd think a $4000 telephoto lens
would be perfect for wildlife. Well, it is. So long as the wildlife is in a
zoo. If your subject is a pair of
900 lb. bears as in the top photo, then a 300 is fine. In that case, I was about
10 meters from the bears. However, if you are going after smaller animals then
you'll need a teleconverter and/or a 600/4. The 600 is the minimum starting point
for serious bird photography. Birds are small. The image at left was taken with
the bird about 3 meters away (in a zoo aviary).
Pelicans are big birds.
Nonetheless, for this image at right I think I had to use a Tamron 2X
teleconverter (at one point I even added the Tamron 1.4X also). Contrast
consequently suffers. Of course, one loses 1 stop of light with a 1.4X converter,
2 stops with a 2X (so the 300/2.8 becomes a 420/4 or 600/5.6). Location:
Yellowstone National Park.
Autofocus
The 300/2.8 has internal focus ("IF" in Nikon nomenclature). That means the
camera is only driving a lightweight internal optical element and not the whole
barrel full of glass back and forth. This makes for much faster autofocus,
probably adequate for many uses with the N90s. Personally, I only ever used the
300/2.8 with a 6006, 8008 or F4 and the single central AF sensor on those cameras
made AF useless for me.
Using the lens
You can't screw filters onto the front of a 300/2.8. Well, maybe you can but
you will go bankrupt buying them. There is a little filter drawer towards the
back that takes 39mm filters. If you leave this drawer empty as opposed
to containing the special clear filter that comes with the lens, then I think you
get a strange line on your images.
What you can/should screw to the front is the lens hood. I think the Nikon
300/2.8 is actually reasonably flare-proof. The reason to use the hood is that
(1) it is light, (2) it can't hurt image quality, (3) it helps protect the lens,
(4) it is huge enough to inspire awe.
I saw a lot of wildlife photographers in
Katmai National Park using little drawstring
condoms on the front of their 300/2.8 sunshades rather than putting the
contraption in a hard case.
Should you scratch the front of the lens, rest assured that this is a
relatively cheap element and Nikon will replace it for you, maybe for around
$300.
I've knocked my 300/2.8 a few times and it seems to be holding up fine. It is
not a fragile product.
Oh yes, the price
You're looking at about $4000 including the suitcase. Used, maybe $3000. If
you're really poor, the traditional pro alternative is a used Tamron 300/2.8 for
about $2000. Console yourself that you don't have to shell out $6000-8000 for a
600/4.
If you have a Nikon N90s or F4 body, you'll want the AF-I version which has a
built-in motor and lets you do the simultaneous AF/MF trick that makes Canon EOS
USM lenses so pleasant.
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