Nikon 300mm F4 PF lens

11 December 2016

I went to Hong kong late October to attend a wedding. I had pre ordered the above lens from a shop I have dealt with for over 35 years! The shop is Kowloon Photo Service based in Yaumati, Kowloon. Yaumati was my “hunting” ground when I worked in Hong Kong.

Previously the maximum focal length I had was 200mm. I did purchase a Tamron 150-600 but I found my images were too soft and not worth the effort of carrying around as my percentages of “keepers’ was less than 10% from a technical view, and not even photographic merit considered. So I decided to spend even more money on the Nikon.

The advantage of the PF (phase fresnel) was that it enabled the lens to be half the weight and size of its predecessor making it easy to walk around with. Optically it was very sharp even at full aperture.

Bird photography as mentioned in previous blogs is not my passion but when you are in Hong Kong and wake up 5 hours before anyone else because of jet lag, what do you do? You get out before breakfast, head for the fields surrounding Sally”s village and take some photos to try out the new lens. i also bought a Nikon teleconvertor 1.4x. This brings the focal length to 420mm at F5.6. I’m not normally a fan of teleconvertors but overall this one is acceptable. It is a fraction soft at F 5.6 (I had to use more Sharpening in Lightroom) but the auto focus is still fast and it doesn’t appear to compromise my photography too much. Its not a bad way to double ones previous focal length which was my original intention. Flare control in direct sunlight is also good as you can see from the photos.

All my shots were hand held and because the “VR” on the lens is also very good my only poor shots were the mis focussed ones from when I tried to pan and capture a flying bird. This is obviously down to technique and no reflection on my equipment!