My Future Wildlife Setup - Help!
Hey everyone 🙌
I am about to switch to Nikon and would appreciate some final advice or feedback on my potential setup. 🙏
A bit of background: I am currently travelling through Central and South America and have really fallen in love with wildlife and bird photography. During this trip, I have been using a Fuji X-H2S with the 16–55mm and the 70–300mm with a 1.4x teleconverter. This roughly covers a full-frame equivalent range of 25–600mm.
Although I am generally happy with this lightweight travel setup, I would like more reliable autofocus for birds in flight and fast-moving subjects. A higher-resolution sensor would also be helpful, as around 40–50 MP seems to be the sweet spot for me and would allow for more cropping. In addition, I shoot landscapes and photograph one or two football matches every Sunday. These matches usually take place during the day, so low-light performance is not a major concern.
After doing some research, I am considering the following setup:
Option 1
- Nikon Z8
- NIKKOR Z 24–120mm f/4 S for travel and landscapes
- NIKKOR Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S for lightweight hiking, wildlife and sports photography, with the option of reaching 560mm using the 1.4x teleconverter
- NIKKOR Z 180–600mm f/5.6–6.3 VR for birding and future safaris
- Nikon Z TC-1.4x
I decided against the 100–400mm because I analysed my wildlife photos taken with the Fuji and found that around 90% of them were shot above 350mm. I also feel that the 100–400mm and the 180–600mm overlap quite a lot.
However, I recently read some very positive reviews of the 600mm f/6.3 PF. This made me consider the following alternative, which would be slightly more expensive:
Option 2
- Nikon Z8
- NIKKOR Z 24–120mm f/4 S for travel and landscapes
- NIKKOR Z 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6 VR S for hiking, wildlife and sports photography, as well as safaris when paired with the 600mm
- NIKKOR Z 600mm f/6.3 VR S for birding and future safaris.
In this setup, I would choose the 100–400mm instead of the 180–600mm because the 600mm f/6.3 would cover the long end. For hiking and sports, I would mainly use the 100–400mm.
I am also planning to keep my Fuji setup. It already looks quite well-used, so I probably would not get much money for it anyway. I might continue using it for football matches.
What do you think about these two setups? Is there another lens or combination that I may have overlooked completely? 😅
Thanks!