We used aeach of the building blocks in the table below during decennia in Holland, Greecm Spain, France, Poland abd Morocco and Israel in various kinds of wheather and circumstances. Some lightweight elements have proven to be really “unique” because of their low weight and excellent optical performance as you can see in the table, in particular Nikons Phase Fesnel lenses and mirrorless Z camera’s.
All combinations can be used succesfully handheld. We tend to use combinations on tripod if we (expect to) need to accurately point our camera at birds far away like over 25 meter. We then use lightweight Cooman tripod & Sirui tripod head:
Lightweight building blocks:
| Type element | Nr. | Name | weight (gram) | price (euro) | 35mm equivalent (mm) | quality (1 – unique) | note |
| MLC | 1 | Z50 | – | 8 | |||
| MLC | 2 | Z7 II | – | 8 | |||
| tele zoom | 3 | 70-200mm VR | 9 | ||||
| tele zoom | 4 | Z50-250mm VR | 9 | ||||
| telelens | 5 | 300mm f/4E PF VR | – | 9 | |||
| telelens | 6 | 500mm f/5.6E PF VR | unique | ||||
| converter | 7 | TC 14E II or III | 8 | ||||
| converter | 8 | TC 20E III | unique | aspherical | |||
| Z telelens | 9 | Z 180-600mm f/5.0-6.3 | 8 | – | 9 | ||
| Z telelens | 10 | Z 400 qqq | – | 9 | |||
| Z telelens | 11 | Z 450 qqq | – | 9 | Z TC 14 combo good | ||
| set | 12 | D500 500mm f/5.6E PF VR TC-20E III | 1500 | ||||
| set | 13 | Z50 500mm f/5.6E PF VR TC-20E III | |||||
| set | 14 | Z50 180-600mm f/5.0-6.3 Z TC-14 | 1260 | affordable allrounder | |||
| set | 15 | Z50 180-600mm f/5.0-6.3 Z TC-14 | 2780 | 180-600mm works fine with Z TC14 | |||
| set | 16 | Z7 II Z 400mm S f/4.5 Z TC-14 | 840 | perfect optics |
