The Wrong Lens

I almost threw the big 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR lens on the Nikon D3 when I headed out the door for lunch yesterday, but opted to stick with the old 80-200mm f/2.8D push-pull zoom instead.

The latter doesn't have as much reach, but it's lighter and less bulky, and the fast aperture makes it a pretty fair jackleg portrait lens.

So of course I no sooner round the corner at the end of the block than I encounter three squirrels chasing each other all over a tall-ass oak tree.

A 200mm lens on a full-frame camera is long, but not wildlife-photography-long. On top of that, the 12MP sensor of the old D3 doesn't give a ton of leeway for saving a marginal shot by cropping the bejeezus out of it.

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