I never thougt it would happen, but I left Nikon.
The 300/2.8VR is the best lens ever, but carrying it around the whole day with a D3, and a second body with landscape-lens, and bins is just too much and almost killed my back recently.
So I need a 300/4.0, stabilised. But not from Nikon, it does not exist. Of course I asked if they are going to make it, but they cannot comment on future products. I did not understand the technical explanation why DX-telelenses are not worth designing, but they did send my request for a VR400/4.0 to Nikon Japan. That lens would be my all time favorite!
So there is Canon, which makes a very fine and affordable 300/4.0 IS (Image Stabilisation!). A quality lens with a minimum focus distance of only 1.5 meters. The problem is that it does not fit on a Nikon camera. So what are the options to replace the excellent Nikon D3 with?
Canon has a lot of problems to control noise on higher iso, and I don't have faith in the 7DmII, as the 7D gets noisy above 200 iso already. I never shoot RAW and I do not want to learn the world of NoiseNinja and Neat Image, so only few options left. The fullframe 1Ds/5D series are just too slow for serious action/flight photography, and I prefer buying a new boat instead of the the 1Dx. So I ended up with the 1DmIV. I haven't tested the combination in daylight yet but the first results of this 1.3- crop camera have not disappointed me. But it is not a D3, and there is no logic in the design of buttons and menu's:-)
