M.Beier

The 150-600 is close to 2kg, while the 55-300 is 530 gram - I guess that has a 'slight' impact on the walk around aspect.

The 55-300 isnt great, far from, but it all depends

you cannot get:

Great

Light

Cheap

For high focal, they are expensive and fairly heavy.

Cheap, light and less great is a good starting point, atleast you'll get some of the extra reach.

With D3300.... I'd actually go for 55-300 DX....
Considering the price of the body, the fact that its DX and the difference in the results you'll acheive..
Sure 150-600 is a good option, but its much more expensive.

D3300 is a fairly cheap camera, the 150-600 is slightly overkill in my opinion.

Valid point about the weight and size, its not tiny, pretty far from.

I'm no expert, but on my D5200 the lens performs fairly well, I wouldnt say that is a highend camera. Obviously better on D800 (E), but, it isnt weak on the smaller backup.

On top of my head, I cannot think of anything else that gives more reach at lower weight/size, unless its a prime.

Sadly I do not think its possible.

NIKON has a pocket camera, none DSLR, that has 83x zoom if Im not mistaking...

As for Africa, you need as much reach as your budget allows on safari... Personally I would get the Tamron 150-600 F5-6.3 (version 2) with a TC2 to get effective maximum reach of 1200mm (though ~1050 is maximum in order to keep good quality)

This along side a small 18-55, if I wanted to travel light.

As Merco said, I do suggest keeping the lens hood on at all time, if not using external flash, then nighttime with onboard flash makes sense without hood, other then that - no.

*And also the lens hood is great protection.

Personally I do none...

I spend the time trying to improve my technique and gain experience.... I barely have time to sort, heck im still behind a few thousand shots... So far I just enjoy to see how my 'gut feeling' of shutterspeed, exposure compensation and aperture becomes more spot on, and also my sense on which focus option to select...

I'm still at the very basic level, despite I am gear-hungry.... I am seriously considering SIGMA 50mm ART 1.4, despite most of the pictures I submit are even from the JPG files (which is close to criminal when using D800E*)

When I get further, I'll edit only the natural:
PS for lens correction...

Highlighting objects a bit more - often the shadows can be a nightmare when shooting things in the sky, be it birds or planes...

There is no wrong, no right - its all a matter of style..

*It is wrong using JPG with this cam though... Despite sites such as Reuters won't accept none original JPEG anymore^

1/60

F8

APS-C Single point

ISO-50 to 400

And yes, flash mounted on cam, and pointed directly against object, to allow low ISO despite poor lighting combined with high aperture.

Later I changed speed to 1/200 and F9

Some pictures were F11 as well (but at 1/60 before I went in M setting)

D, been offered to become C a few times, but so far - I do not feel confident, my quality varies too much that I feel like selling anything, im in it for personal hobby so far

Will skip C and go straight for B, once I feel confident enough to cover weddings, I believe som of my pictures have the quality needed.

Example this one, I believe has plenty quality for pro work - might be arrogance, but I do believe that one is 'nailed it'

https://flic.kr/p/JaAFXF

A while ago I was given a 105mm AFS Micro, finally I got the chance to play with it and had luck with finding an insect... I've had the issue that when ever I went out with it, nothing to take pictures of, and when I left it at home, I found something I wanted to do pictures of..... 

Anyhow, my weak start
Attaching the cropped versions, as of the 20MB file limit...

Note all pictures are 100%, no downscaling

Pretty happy with the D800E and lens, the flash sure as hell made things easy... Yet the flowers require even higher aperture then lens can provide at good quality.

Please feel free to feedback advice, especially on how to get even closer to the animals and yet, maintain AF

Snap, forum cropped some of the pictures down.... 

Image4 should be 1200*1800 hmm

Ok ok trying flickr link

https://flic.kr/s/aHskDhLXAs

Dear forum,

I'm not 'done' with my lens collection yet...

50mm Sigma ART

85mm F1.8

15-30mm Tamron

Those are yet to be purchased...

Yet, I am already thinking, what else do I need?

Lets face it, D800E isnt exactly ideal for video, in fact, its pretty darn useless..

When having quite a decent amount of great quality lenses for NIKON, what would you suggest? I want something such as Panasonic GH4, yet, I need the AF - and, obviously FX would be most ideal as for the 'need' of light @ other formats.

Any words?
Oh and, again, BUDGET, not thinking 3000USD+ body.

D820 (or D850?)

50Mp sensor, relatively weak buffer (compared with D5 even with D500), crazy AF system, matching D500/D5...

*And yes, expect it at Photokina

D620 20-24Mp sensor, crazy AF system, same features as D500, just FX - no higher pixelcount, atleast not extraordinary.

Cannot imagine D7300, as D500 is everything I expected from such^

Figured out the 'riddle'

There are 2 versions of the SSD

1) AHCI 2150/1250MB/s 90K IOPS

2) NVMe 2150/1250MB/s 300K IOPS

Second version, will not work.... Fortunately for me, it is AHCI version that I bought - should work just fine then, hurra!

Why do you say that it can't be used as a boot device?

 

Most SSD's are designed to be used as boot devices. If you can put your OS and applications on the SSD you will see a significant improvement in overall performance. 

 

--Ron

Yes, most.
I got a 480 GB Agility 3 SATA SSD as boot drive.

The NGFF M.2 disk by Samsung, cannot operate as boot drive, cannot remember why, but sadly google confirms so - but.... If the sorting is done from the device, and the programs run from this unit, it should perform around 4 times as fast as most SATA SSDs.

Using SSD in all computers without exception.

Agreed, 24-70 is quite ideal.

As for tripod, I have not found the ideal for my purpose yet - so I deff wont advice others.

As for 24-70, read about all the choices - pick the one that will suit YOU - be it SIGMA, NIKON, TOKINA, TAMRON etc.

On a sidenote, I bought a 8+2 pack of Duracell when doing grocery shopping (at 35DKK, and remote control for TV needs new anyway, I couldnt help..

Gotta say; That flash, oh that flash!

What a world of difference.

I cannot get that focus laser-grid (focus assistance) to get near center of viewfinder, however, the flash really works outstanding!

Creepy?
Went to the bathroom, closed the door - all light entering was through keyhole.... Was able to get a sharp picture of a figurine at ISO50 F5 1/250...
Holy crap^^ 

Might be an old thread on the forum, however, I did not find it.

How does your bag look? Do you change items usually?

From upper right: Cleaning kit, is located there, as the big zooms tend to loose their cap due bag design if they are all the way to the bottom...

Next to it: 150-600 Tamron F5-6.3

Midlde laine:
50mm F1.8G (to be replaced with 1.4 Sigma ART*)

105mm micro AFS VR

Camera with lens mounted, in this case 24-70 F2.8 Tamron, but can be any except the two biggies.

Lower section:
Left: Powerbank, power adapter, USB adapter -> This is where the future 15-30 F2.8 Tamron is to fit in.

Next to it: 70-200 F2.8 Tamron, on top of it, the strap.

Other end of the bag:
D800E, not sure what to do when getting a decent DX in future... My D5200 I decided NOT to put in the bag anymore.

In the top pouch: 
Yongnuo YN568EX, diffuser on top of it, and cleaning-pump

NOT PICTURED PARTS:
In the strap around waist:

One side batteries & Memory cards, other side: Cleaning stuff; Microfiber cloth, brush.

Front section:

Raincoat for bag

Raincoat for body & telezoom lens

Cables, and in future all the crap that occupies the space of the extra lens at the moment.

---------

Looking forward to seeing your choices lads.

*and sorry if there is already a thread that I just didnt spot.