Wildlife Lenses: telephoto-zoom round up

By Kevin Carter - Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Lens Article
Wildlife photography: what do I need? | Wildlife lens image quality overview | Image quality ranking | Lenses delivered overview

With the vagaries of photographing wildlife, the flexibility of a telephoto zoom would appear to be an attractive solution. However, image quality is often a compromise at the maximum aperture and longest focal length, typically the most crucial settings.  We’ve pulled some lens data from our database and put together a round up of popular zoom lenses over the years (and made some comparisons with high performance primes). Read on to find out which models have the best image quality.

Wildlife photography: what do I need?

Photographing wildlife successfully doesn’t necessarily depend on having the longest and fastest super-telephoto lens available in a manufacturer’s list, in fact it requires a good deal of skill and patience, but there are some lenses that can help improve your chances. A telephoto can be of benefit when photographing shy and small creatures/animals, but while offering high image quality, a fixed focal length telephoto can be restricting.

A zoom lens, however, is much more flexible and by carrying fewer lenses, can save weight and be real blessing while travelling on airlines and public transport not to mention allowing considerable freedom in the field. The trade-off for this convenience is often lower- lens speed and -image quality. Having a lens with a wide maximum aperture is often essential to prevent subject blurring but high-speed telephoto zooms are pricey and fixed focal length telephoto lenses aren’t really any more affordable either.

We’ve put together a review of telephoto zooms and fixed focal length lenses that encompass a focal length of at least 300mm. However, bear in mind, even when used on an APS-C cropped camera this focal length is considered too short for smaller animals, birds especially. Lenses that exceed that focal length are fewer and more expensive but where possible we’ve included them (from our database of 22 lenses and more than 400 camera/lens combinations).

Lenses that fall firmly into this particular category in our test database include:

We are also aware that lenses like the high-end, full-frame Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-400mmm f/4G ED VR II (and the to be released Canon equivalent) are rightly popular (especially on an APS-C camera, where it becomes a 300-600mm f/4 in effect) and so this review will be updated when we’ve had a chance to put them through our labs.

Other lenses that are not yet included in our tested database but should also be considered include;

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Comments
Added by fermanaman |  April 05

Wildlife Lenses: telephoto-zoom round up

How about adding the Pentax 55-300mm lens to the look at in the future list!

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Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  April 10

Re: Wildlife Lenses: telephoto-zoom round up

Hello,

Thanks for your interest in DxOMark.

Your suggestion is very relevant. Currently this is not a priority but we will try to keep it in mind.

Best regards,

The DxOMark team

Reply
Added by AEH |  March 21

No mention of the Sony 70-400mm G ???

Not even in your "should also be considered" list?

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Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  March 29

Re: No mention of the Sony 70-400mm G ???

Hello,

Thanks for your interest in DxOMark.

Thanks for your suggestion, we updated the review.

Best regards,

The DxOMark team

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Added by Cris57 |  March 07

80-400

Bonjour. La nouvelle mouture du zoom 80-400 de Nikon, vient de sortir. À un prix exorbitant ! Plus de deux fois le modèle précédent ! Dans le même style que votre comparaison 70-200 f4, 70-200 f2,8 Nikon et Canon, je serai extrêmement intéressé par une comparaison des deux versions du 80-400 Nikon (ancienne et nouvelle), avec le  100-400 Canon.
Merci d'avance. Je brûle d'impatience !

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Added by loic |  February 23

keep your money!



- weight make 2,8 impossible to use in wildlife without tripod!

- at 5,6, a 200 dollar lens is the same quality optically than a 1500 canon or nikon "pro" lense!!!!!

photographer, I successfully use a 200$ lens without stabilization:
- for "birding" speed is upper 1/500s
- in low ligth cndition
using a tripod is better than stabilsation.

prefer to use this money for the camera!!!

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Added by loic |  February 23

en français!

Enfin un comparatif!
J'ai toujours affirmé:
- soit il faut acheter un 2,8 avec le problème de le porter (3kg!!!!)
- soit IL N Y A AUCUNE DIFFERENCE DE QUALITE OPTIQUE ENTRE LES MODELES CHERS OU NON

Donc en photographie animalière ALLER AU MOINS CHER les marques nikon ou canon font beaucoup d'argent avec des optiques quasi identiques, canon prétend meme que son zoom est "pro"....

J'utilise une optique à 200$ je suis photographe et les résultats sont très bons, juste un peu de retouche pour le 300mm!

Les optiques à plus de 1000$ n'apportent rien sauf léger mieux pour l'AF quand à la stabilisation elle est suvent inutiles:
- en "birding" on est à plus de 1/500e
- en affut, le trépied!!!

For my english readers : learn French it's a pleasure and the summit of the Civilisation too!

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Added by forall |  February 17

please!

please tests and reviews the lens Tamron SP 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di VC USD Canon! This product should be tested and reviewed on november 2012!
good lens.
thanks

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Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  February 18

Re: please!

Hello,

Thanks for your comment.

The lenses you suggested are very relevant and we are going to add them to our list. In this regard, we welcome any suggestions of yours concerning other lenses we might include in ours reviews.

Best regards,

Reply
Added by forall |  February 19

Re: please!

Thanks for your replies!

Reply
Added by MIcroshooter |  February 15

Nikon V1 with FT-1 mounted lenses

I would like to see the Nikkor 105VR tested on a Nikon V1. Are there any plans to test Nikkor FX/DX lenses on the V1 or V2 when mounted to the V1 via the FT-1 adapter?

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Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  February 19

Re: Nikon V1 with FT-1 mounted lenses

Hello,

Thanks for your comment. Actually there are no tests planned so far for the Nikon 1 with the Nikon F.

Best regards,

Emilie

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Added by peevee |  February 15

Another is missing

There is Panasonic 100-300, but no Olympus 75-300? By now it make sense to test 75-300 II.

And of course everybody waits for the test of the boss of them all, "the rocket launcher", Sigma 200-500/2.8. :) Very few will ever own it, but at least knowing what we are missing. :)

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First replies for this comment
Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  February 18

Re: Another is missing

Hello,

Thanks for your comment.

The lenses you suggested are very relevant and we are going to add them to our list. In this regard, we welcome any suggestions of yours concerning other lenses we might include in ours reviews.

Best regards,

Reply
Added by steveb |  February 14

Missing lenses?

No mention of the Sigma 120-300 2.8?  Tends to get good reviews for the functionality and price

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First replies for this comment
Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  February 15

Re: Missing lenses?

Hello!

Thanks all for your comment.
We are going to add this lens to our database for further comparisons or reviews.  :)

Regards,

Emilie

Reply
Added by gmtmistral |  February 13

Telephoto zoom lens for Nikon over 300mm

Your enquiry concerning zooms for wild life photos is highly welcome...but in your tests or future tests no 400mm, 600mm, 800mm Nikon...

Most amateur photographs are looking for wildlife zooms at a good second hand price: 1500 - 2500 euros

Ken Rockwell on his site suggest to use a 400mm AF I  F2,8 and a TC 14 E teleconverter: this is the kind of equipment you should test for people who can't afford a brand new nikon lens...

There is a big potential market there, and also, a company like yours, could offer a test bench where we could get a test of a second-hand lens, at a fair price, so as to see if its worth buying it...

The potential sellers and buyers could then do the deal in total confidence, or publish in their selling advertisement the test you had done for them. (Cost of test should be around 100 to 150 euros)...

Regards

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First replies for this comment
Added by Emilie_DxOMark |  February 14

Re: Telephoto zoom lens for Nikon over 300mm

Hello,

Thanks for your very relevant comment.

We made the choice to specifically focus in this comparison on telephoto-zooms with a maximum focal superior or equal to 300mm.

Fix focals of 300, 400, 600 or 800mm type, whatever their brands, are indeed well-indicated for wildlife photography. As we already have some long focals in our database, this kind of lenses will be tackled in further comparisons.

The lenses you suggested are very relevant and we are going to add them to our list. In this regard, we welcome any suggestions of yours concerning other lenses we might include in ours reviews.

Best regards,


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