A weekend of motorsport testing the Nikon Nikkor 500mm PF prime lens

Report by David Harbey

5 January 2023



Earlier in the summer I had the opportunity to take a few shots with Nikon’s 500mm PF (phase fresnal) prime lens having previously purchased it’s the 300mm PF sibling. You can find our Long Focal Length Motorsport Lenses report here - Long Focal Length Motorsport Lenses

To date I have been using the excellent Nikkor 200-500mm superzoom which gives good service to professional and amateur shooters alike at a reasonable cost. It is, though, a somewhat unwieldy, large and relatively heavy lens at 2.3kg which many, myself included, prefer to use with a monopod.

The attraction of 500mm focal length in a package only a little longer and heavier than the gold standard 70-200mm zoom is clear.

This is a real world test – in that I attached the 500mm PF lens to a camera, in this case the Nikon D850, and took photos. The difference in weight to the superzoom of 840g is perhaps more noticeable than reduction in overall length of 30mm. You can find more technical assessments of the lens on the internet, should you wish to read them.

The weekend started with an early start for the drive to Oulton Park for their ThundersportGB meeting. Following the light, I started at Lodge and worked round to Old Hall, shooting from the grandstand at Old Hall for the first time (it was free !).

Whilst Oulton Park is largely fence free for the spectator photographer, Lodge and Old Hall do have that challenge. There is a setting to restrict auto focus to minimum 8m and I was pleased with the outcome even though a few through the fence shots do exhibit the usual softness.

I also took a few shots with the 1.7x teleconverter added – giving 850mm focal length. As we noted at Silverstone. the autofocus hunts a bit at that focal length, but decent results were obtained. The two photos below are the only ones in this report that are not taken at 500mm focal length.

Lunch break over, it was time to head out to Knickerbrook, Hilltop and Brittens. I used the lens both with a monopod and handheld. The size makes it much easier to pan with and whilst occasionally I was wishing for 400mm focal length, the lack of fences to shoot through meant that I could afford to take a couple of steps back to get the shot I wanted.

Sunday dawned greyer for the shorter drive to Donington Park for the GT Cup races. Donington has more than its fair share of fencing so it was interested to see how I would get on. I started out at the Esses (no fencing) and Melbourne Loop (through the fence) – the latter for the GT Cup sprint race.

A rare treat of a Garage 39 full English breakfast replaced the Radical race before the walk down to the inside of the Old Hairpin for the first Bernie’s V8 race. A somewhat mixed bag of cars provided a largely processional race – with the occasional close midfield battle.

The Monoposto race followed with another mixed bag - this time, as implied, of single seaters; by then, I was at McLeans for a panning shot at the exit of the corner. There’s also a rather good rear three quarter angle of the cars entering Coppice which would only be bettered by no fence on the horizon or, even better, a 747 taking off in the background.

A favourite spot at Donington for me is the outside of Coppice. It’s through the fence but has my home county in the background and, less helpfully, the CCTV pylon. The leading McLaren was kicking up the dust meaning that the Loggie Mercedes was driving through a dust cloud for the first few laps. As at Oulton Park, the lens performed well through the fence.

A somewhat different angle, which I first used at a rally last year, is the rear shot as the cars head into Coppice. It’s by a marshal’s post and is fence-free. There’s even a sign to tell the drivers where to go at the top of the hill.

The final location for the GT Cup was at the exit of McLeans. The fencing isn’t the best backdrop but the angle and the action are generally good here. Panning through the fence offers a close up of the drivers at work.

That was it – or perhaps not. Walking back to the Esses Tunnel during the final Monoposto race I spotted an angle that needed distance and some good clouds to work. A little work to enhance the silhouette effect and the profile of a single seater made for a rather different image.

There is one potential sticking point –the lens for all its plus points is not cheap – especially for an amateur shooter – and it’s not essential to creating excellent images. So, if it’s a choice between heating your home or feeding the kids and buying this lens … please do the right thing.

Parting shot – sometimes it doesn’t go to plan …

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