When photographing wildlife, whether shooting bears in Alaska, or capturing birds in flight, one of the most important factors in choosing a lens is its focal length. Generally, the longer the lens (in focal length), the better. Unlike landscape and portrait photography, where you could get away with a cheap lens and still get great results, wildlife photography pretty much requires high-quality, fast-aperture telephoto optics. This obviously translates to a high price tag, with the lowest end of the spectrum averaging between $500 to $1,500, and the highest-quality / best reach lenses costing as much as $10,000+. Without a doubt, wildlife photography is a very expensive hobby to have (unless you are so good that you can sell your pictures and make good money), especially once you add up all the gear and travel costs.

1) Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR

If you want to get into wildlife photography on a tight budget, the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR is the lens you want to get. It is a great buy that will get you to 300mm at under $600 USD. Its autofocus is pretty good in daylight and its versatile zoom range of 70-300mm is great for large animals and perched birds. The lens is light and compact, making it easy to carry it around when scouting for wildlife in parks and wildlife spots. It is capable of producing relatively good bokeh, especially on its longest end, although its sharpness performance also drops quite a bit at 300mm. Having VR is a definite plus when hand-holding the lens.

In daylight conditions the Nikon 70-300mm VR can overall produce great results, but its performance does suffer in low-light situations – something to be expected from a slow variable aperture zoom lens. Unfortunately, the Nikon 70-300mm VR cannot be used with any teleconverters, so its range is limited at 300mm.

Here are some sample images from the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR:

See my old Nikon 70-300mm VR Review for more information on this lens.

2) Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II

The next step-up from the 70-300mm lens is the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, a superb lens not only for portraiture, but also for wildlife photography. While its rather short on the long side, it is one of the few Nikon lenses that works with all current Nikon teleconverters. The Nikon TC-14E II makes it a 100-280mm f/4 lens (1.4x focal length multiplication), the Nikon TC-17E II makes it a 120-340mm f/4.8 lens (1.7x) and the latest Nikon TC-20E III doubles the focal length to 140-400mm (2.0x) at f/5.6. A truly versatile lens indeed. The latter combination needs good light for reliable AF and should be stopped down to f/8 for best results (there is some sharpness degradation at f/5.6).

Unlike the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR, the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II is a very sharp lens from 70mm all the way to 200mm. It sports some of the best Nikon technologies, including fast AF, Nano Coating and VR II.

See my detailed Nikon 70-200mm Review for more information on this lens.

3) Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S

The next lens is one of my all-time Nikon favorites, the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S. It is a pro-level lens with superb optics and very fast autofocus. Optically, it is a world better than the Nikon 70-300mm, better than the Nikon 70-200mm VR II + teleconverters and pretty close to its much bigger and heavier brother, the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II.

I love this lens because it is light (compared to the big 300mm+ guns below), compact, sharp, capable of producing beautiful bokeh and works extremely well with the Nikon TC-14E II 1.4x teleconverter. In fact, I have my TC-14E II permanently glued to this lens, because it performs so well wide open at f/5.6 (the 1.4x TC slows the lens down from f/4 to f/5.6) and gets me to 420mm. This is the lens I prefer taking with me on a plane when travelling. It does have a couple of annoyances that I hope Nikon fixes on a future version of this lens. First, the lens has no VR. Second, its lens collar is not designed for good stability and you will have to replace it with a better one. Third, it has no rear optical element, all the way to the lens diaphragm, so you will have to be careful when shooting in dusty conditions (that’s another reason why I keep the TC-14E II mounted on it).

When hand-holding a telephoto lens with no VR, you always have to make sure that your shutter speed stays fast enough not to cause camera shake. Always remember that the longer the focal length of the lens, the more prone it is to camera shake. A general rule of thumb is to keep your shutter speed faster than the focal length of the lens. So if your focal length is 300mm, then your shutter speed should be faster than 1/300 of a second. If you use a DX camera, then don’t forget to multiply the number by 1.5x, which in this case would be around 1/450. Obviously, it all depends on your hand-holding technique. If you have very strong hands and a good hand-holding technique, you might be able to get great results with much slower shutter speeds, while those with shaky hands might need to increase the shutter speed even more to get acceptably sharp images. I explain all this in detail in my “how to photograph birds” article.

One question that I get a lot from our readers, is which combo to get – the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II + TC-20E III, or the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S + TC-14E II. I have both and I certainly prefer the latter combo (300mm f/4 + TC-14E II). First, as I have already stated earlier, the 70-200mm + TC-20E III should be stopped down to f/8 for best sharpness, while the 300mm f/4 + TC-14E II is sharp wide open, so there is a stop of advantage right there. Second, AF speed and accuracy with the 300mm f/4 + TC-14E II is much better – you will get a lot more consistent results. What about VR (or lack thereof)? When I use the Nikon 300mm f/4 lens, I always keep the shutter speed fast, knowing that I do not have VR. It helps to shoot with a good low-light camera like the Nikon D700 or Nikon D3s that can handle high ISO, because I can set Auto ISO to regulate camera ISO when light conditions change. I definitely prefer faster and more accurate AF to VR.

Many of my wildlife photographs that I posted as wallpapers on this website have been shot with this lens. See my old Nikon 300mm f/4 Review for more information on this lens.

Some image samples from the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S:

What about the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens? Forget about it – its AF is slow in comparison. I have tried the 80-400mm and would not consider it for fast-action photography, especially birding.

4) Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II

The next big jump (in terms of size, weight and cost) gets us to the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II – a phenomenal lens, one of Nikon’s best lenses to date. It is a workhorse tool used by professionals for sports, wildlife and portrait photography. I used the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II for several months and I was very impressed by its performance, especially when coupled with teleconverters. In fact, Nikon specifically released the TC-20E III together with this lens, which makes this lens almost like a “reference” lens for use with teleconverters (with the TC-20E III, the lens becomes a 600mm f/5.6 lens). It is loaded with Nikon’s latest technologies like VR II and its optics are simply outstanding. AF performance is top notch, with super fast and accurate autofocus acquisition, even in low-light situations.

I have been shooting with the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR lens for the last 4-5 years and I can assure you that the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II is overall a better lens to buy (unless you shoot large animals from a close distance, like bears in Alaska). I bought the Nikon 200-400mm for its zoom capabilities, but the lens turned out to be heavier, bulkier and it just does not tolerate anything longer than the TC-14E II. This leaves me with 560mm of effective focal length to work with on the long end, which seems to be very close in terms of IQ to the 300mm f/2.8G VR II @ 600mm. But its biggest problem is not the 40mm shorter focal length – it has one major weakness, which only shows up when you photograph anything at a distance. Up close, the 200-400mm creates beautiful images, but as soon as you start shooting subjects over 50 feet or more, its autofocus accuracy goes down the drain. Mind you, this does not typically happen when shooting lone birds in the sky, but primarily when there is something immediately behind the subject. For example, when I was photographing bears in Yellowstone, 8/10 times I would get grass behind the bear in focus. When I first noticed this behavior 3-4 years ago, I thought that it was just my bad camera/focusing techniques. I tried reacquiring focus, using only the center AF point and tried all kinds of tricks and the problem did not go away. I then thought that something was wrong with my lens, so I calibrated it like crazy, only to find that there was nothing wrong with it. Then I read complaints from other 200-400mm owners on various forums, who reported exactly the same problem with this lens and that’s when I realized that it was the lens that was the problem. I tried the 300mm f/2.8G (along with 400mm and 500mm lenses) in very similar conditions and they do not have the same problem. For this reason alone, I would not buy the 200-400mm again. I have been recommending the 300mm f/2.8G to our readers instead for a while now.

See my detailed Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II Review for more information on this lens.

5) Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR

The next best wildlife lens is Nikon’s heavyweight super telephoto bazooka, the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR. This is the lens that will get you to 800mm at f/5.6 with a 2x teleconverter! Weighing a whopping 4.6 kilos, it is almost as heavy as Nikon’s longest 600mm f/4 lens (more on the 600mm below) and almost twice as heavy as the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II. It is a massive lens for a reason – its large aperture of f/2.8 requires huge glass elements to transmit so much light into the camera. Similar to the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II, it also works exceptionally well with all teleconverters, including the Nikon TC-20E III.

Due to its massive size, this lens requires a good tripod setup. Forget about trying to hand-hold it, even if you have arms as big as Schwarzenegger’s. It has very impressive optical features and it delivers exceptionally good-looking images, especially at its maximum aperture of f/2.8. However, its weight and size are its biggest enemy. This is not the lens you would pack in a backpack for hiking.

A summary on which super telephoto lens I would recommend and my thoughts on 400mm f/2.8, 500mm f/4 and 600mm f/4 lenses is provided at the bottom of this article.

See my detailed Nikon 400mm f/2.8G Review for more information on this lens.

6) Nikon 500mm f/4G VR

The Nikon 500mm f/4G VR is sort of a “sweet middle” between the 400mm and 500mm lenses. Due to its slower f/4 aperture, it is actually a much lighter lens than the 400mm f/2.8G VR (by almost a kilogram) and only slightly heavier than the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR II. This is the only super telephoto lens that I would even consider hand-holding for short periods of time. Optically it is an insanely sharp lens, I would say about the same as the Nikon 600mm f/4 below. Again, not much to complain about in terms of optics and features.

Unlike the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR, the Nikon 500mm f/4G VR only works well with the TC-14E II teleconverter, giving an effective focal length of 700mm at f/5.6. Unless you shoot with the new Nikon D4 that can handle autofocus up to f/8, forget about using either the TC-17E II or the TC-20E III on this lens. I tried them both on the D3s and I was disappointed. Not just because I was getting softer images, but also because AF with the TC-17E II is very inaccurate and manual focus with the TC-20E III at 1000mm is very painful and cumbersome.

I will soon publish a detailed review of the Nikon 500mm f/4G VR lens, along with more image samples.

7) Nikon 600mm f/4G VR

And lastly, I present you the Cadillac of all Nikon super telephoto lenses: the Nikon 600mm f/4G VR – the longest, the heaviest, the bulkiest and the priciest lens of them all. This is the lens that many wildlife photographers get, especially those that photograph birds. It goes without saying that you need a good support system for this lens – a very sturdy Gitzo Systematic series tripod with a Wimberley Gimbal head is what I would get to hold this monster. Couple it with a professional camera body like the Nikon D3s, and we are talking about a whopping 6.5 kilograms here!

Again, your only choice for longer reach is to use the Nikon TC-14E II, which will give you 840mm of effective focal length to work with at f/5.6. Neither the Nikon TC-17E II nor the new Nikon TC-20E III work reliably well with the 600mm f/4 lens. Yes, in good light you can get some decent results with the TC-17E II, but the lens will occasionally hunt. As for the TC-20E III, AF is very unreliable and all over the place. Lens hunts even in good light with the 2x TC.

Nikon 400mm f/2.8 vs Nikon 500mm f/4 vs Nikon 600mm f/4

Choosing between the three Nikon super telephoto lenses can be difficult, given the weight/size considerations and how many different combinations you can do with teleconverters to get to a certain focal length. While you can do all kinds of math to see what you would get with each lens and shoot charts to see which combination wins, at the end of the day, it is all about which lens gives you the longest focal length with the least amount of problems like weight, size and transportation considerations. What is optically better? The Nikon 400mm + TC-20E III @ 800mm, the Nikon 500mm + TC-17E II @ 850mm or the Nikon 600mm + TC-14E II @ 840mm? The Nikon 600mm + TC-14E II performs the best wide open with the 500mm + TC-17E II coming in second and 400mm + TC-20E III coming last, but when all three are stopped down to f/8, those differences pretty much go away. The most important factor to consider is not how a lens performs sharpness-wise when shooting a test target from a distance, but how reliably its AF functions in mixed light environments. How good is sharpness if you cannot even lock AF on your subject? In this case, the Nikon 600mm f/4 is always going to be the top choice. As for 400mm f/2.8 vs 500mm f/4, the 400mm will give you more options and working AF with all three teleconverters, while the 500mm has a weight/bulk advantage. In summary: if you need the reach, you get the 600mm f/4. If you want to be able to hand-hold a lens, you get the 500mm. And lastly, you get the 400mm f/2.8 for its versatility – if you want to be able to use all three teleconverters with working autofocus. If your plan is to always use a tripod, then either get the 600mm f/4 or the 400mm f/2.8, depending on your budget. Here are the price differences between the three lenses:

1. Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR – $8,199
2. Nikon 500mm f/4G VR – $8,399
3. Nikon 600mm f/4G VR – $10,000

As you can see, the price difference between the 400mm and the 500mm lenses is minimal, while the 600mm is priced significantly higher.

Now with the upcoming D4, things might change quite a bit. If AF accuracy on the Nikon D4 is indeed better than on the D3s when teleconverters are used (with working AF at f/8), then the Nikon 500mm might be a better choice over the 400mm (850mm with TC-17E II and 1000mm with TC-20E III vs 800mm with TC-20E III) for reach.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

1) Tricolored Heron 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

2) Sandhill Cranes Taking Off 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

3) Iguana 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

4) Grouse 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

5) Birds at Sunset 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

6) Common Merganser 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

7) Burrowing Owl 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

8) Buffalo Feeding 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

9) Blue Bird 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

10) Birds at Twilight 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

11) Birds at Sunset 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

1) Roseate Spoonbills 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

2) Osprey Eating Fish 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

3) Marmot Standing Up 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

4) Great White Egret 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

5) Coyote 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

6) Clark’s Nutcracker Feeding 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

7) Burrowing Owl in Flight 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

Western Meadowlark 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

1) Geese at Sunrise

2) American Pika 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

3) Hawk on Hay 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

4) Burrowing Owl Chick 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

5) Roseate Spoonbill 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

6) Black-necked Stilt 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

7) Black Bear Cub 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

8) Baby Marmot 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

This guy took off right away, but flew over me for about 10 seconds before flying far away, so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of this beautiful bird:

Unfortunately, one of the worst computer disasters hit me last year, when my hard drive died and I lost two very precious weeks of photographs. Those photographs were priceless – I captured a fox with 5 fox kits in their natural habitat: playing, cuddling with each other and chasing, capturing and eating mice. All of those photos were lost for good and I was only able to save a low-resolution version of a couple of pictures that I sent over email to a fox rescuer. Honestly, if there was a way to save those pics, I would have traded them over everything else I got in 2009…that’s how valuable they were for me. I resized those low-res images of foxes and I’m attaching them here. Although they are not as good when it comes to quality, I still love them.

1) Red Fox 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

2) Red Fox Kit 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

3) Mountain Pika 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

4) Mountain Pika Voice 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

5) Male Buffalo 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

6) Island Fox 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

7) Female Buffalo 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

8) Dolphin Jump 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

9) Coyote 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

10) Channel Islands Side-Blotched Lizard 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper

Ultimately, I wanted to capture nice images of wolves, black and grizzly bears, foxes, coyotes, various birds (eagles, hawks, owls, etc) and so on and so forth. I’m not sure if it was the hot weather, too many people or just bad luck, but we just didn’t see much wildlife at all. Sure there were deer, elk, bison and some mountain birds…but I have seen them all in Colorado and I can capture them close right here pretty much any time of the year. I read various booklets, asked rangers and other people and still was not able to see anything special.

Let’s start with raptors. Basically, raptors are abundant and can be found everywhere in the park. If you drive along the lakes and rivers, you will most definitely spot Ospreys and Bald Eagles. Ospreys are everywhere and I saw at least 10 of them, whereas Bald Eagles are somewhat rare (only saw a couple).

The below image of the bald eagle has an unfortunate story. While I was photographing a hot spring by a river at slow shutter speeds and wide lens, apparently an osprey snatched a fish right in front of me and I didn’t even see it. Most likely I was looking into the viewfinder and not paying attention to what was going on around me. Then, two bald eagles showed up from nowhere and started fighting with the osprey to take away its lunch. All of this was happening right above my head, while I had no idea. At one point I heard my wife yell and I thought she was calling me back. When I looked at Hilola, I saw her pointing her finger at the sky. I looked up and saw two raptors fighting with each other. Without hesitation, I immediately ran to the parking lot to grab my long lens. By the time I got back, the osprey was already high in the air and the bald eagle was having a hard time catching up. They were both rising high and were already far away from each other, so I went after the bald eagle and took some pictures. It was an overcast day and because of the contrast between the cloudy sky and dark feathers of the bird, the image came out underexposed (I was shooting in spot-metering mode, pointing the center focus at the bird). It turned out that Hilola called me several times from the very beginning, but I simply didn’t hear her because of the noisy river. Worst of all, right before getting out of the car, I thought about taking the long lens with me, but since we stopped to check out some hot springs, I thought that I wouldn’t need it and that it would be better to stay light without the extra gear. Stupid me, I should have taken the lens along from the start! I hate when I miss such rare opportunities. And this is not the first time stuff like this is happening to me!

There were so many different types of hawks at Yellowstone, that I lost my count. Just to name a few: Red-tailed Hawk (below), Cooper’s Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Swainson’s Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Red-Shouldered Hawk and Northern Harrier were all seen at least once each.

I saw this pair of Sandhill Cranes in the Lamar Valley, while we were looking for wolves and bears.

Smaller birds were all over Yellowstone. I didn’t have much time to do some real birding, but I saw a lot of different types of sparrows and finches, mountain bluebirds, robins, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, clark’s nutcrackers, chickadees and swallows. Most of these would show up in our camping area and would be pretty active in the morning.

American Goldfinch:

Mountain Bluebird:

Greater Sage-Grouse is pretty common in the park, especially in mountainous open areas:

I didn’t see many smaller mammals except the usual chipmunks and squirrels. The below creature looks like a ground squirrel, but I’m not entirely sure.

This ugly lizard-like creature visited us right after the rain in the dark. After Kamola stepped on it, we thought it was dead, but it wasn’t – it was just playing dead. This nasty lizard was soft and yucky and I definitely did not want to deal with it. So, without touching it, I snapped a quick photo with an on-camera flash and let it continue its journey.

Pronghorns and deer were everywhere. The below deer was captured several feet away from our camping spot.

Obviously, you haven’t seen Yellowstone if you haven’t seen Bison. These guys are everywhere and are probably the most common large animal in the park.

Male Bison:

Female Bison:

Male and Female watching after a newly born youngster:

Let’s talk about wolves and bears now – the main attraction of Yellowstone. I was encouraged by other photographers that saw bears and wolves in Yellowstone and were able to capture them during hunts and feasts. I had a lot of expectations and thought that spotting wolves and bears would be very easy…well, I was wrong! Again, not sure if it had something to do the time of the year, temperatures or my luck, but we only saw wolves twice after sunset and a black bear once. Nothing close enough to photograph in good quality! We were fasting during the last 4 days of the trip and we would wake up early in the morning every day and head out to see bears and wolves, but without much success. We drove through Lamar Valley (which is well-known for wolf and bear sightings) at least 3-4 times and checked out the Hayden Valley every day.

The following photograph of a wolf pack was captured early in the morning in Lamar Valley. The pack was hunting deer on the top of the mountain and they were so far away that I couldn’t capture the details of the hunt. It was a cloudy day on top of that, so it was almost impossible to capture any interesting images.

The following black wolf was captured in Hayden Valley. He was so far away that I had to shoot with a 2x teleconverter and had to crop the image for you to be able to see him:

Same here with the black bear. He was too far away and it was raining when we spotted him. I had to crank up my ISO and shoot on a tripod to bring at least some clarity to the picture:

Despite the mediocre wildlife experience in Yellowstone, I’m looking forward for better opportunities in the future. I hope you enjoyed viewing these crappy images :)