Harry13

I'm also retired. Included in my early purchases were a Canon 5Dc and two lenses: a 50mm and a 70-300. Not L glass but decent lenses. Never felt the need to buy "the latest and greatest" but I do have a drawer full of lens that I've accumulated over the years and which I use from time to time (a24mm, a70-200 f4 etc.). When I went to digital from 35mm film back in the day, I also switched from Nikon to Canon. Dunno why, at 88, my memory ain't quite what it used to be. <g> Harry

Dalbon

Actually I didn't even notice I had typed in caps until I was almost finish and I wasn't going back to retype everything again. Didn't mean to yell although I had never heard of that before. Learn something new everyday, hopefully.
Thanks, David

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Nikon D800 is a full frame (FX) camera.

Tamron 16-300mm is a crop only (Di II) lens.

On D800 the images will either be automatically cropped to DX format or will show heavy vignetting that requires similar manual cropping later in post-processing...

Either way, instead of making 36MP FX images, every image you make with that lens on that camera will end upwith approx. 15MP DX images... Not terrible, but lower resolution than current DX camera models such as D7500 (21MP) or D7200/D5600/D3500 (24MP). Sort of a waste of the money spent on an FX camera, to "cripple" it with a DX lens that basically makes the D800 inferior to a less expensive DX camera.

Your best bet is probably the Nikkor 28-300mm FX lens, if you must use a "do everything zoom".

Alternatively, depending upon what other lenses you already have, you might consider a different lens. For example, if you already have a 24-120mm Nikkor as a "walk around" lens, you might add the compact Nikkor 300mm f/4 "PF" to your kit... or the less compact Nikkor 300mm f/4 ED IF. You may be able to use those lenses with a 1.4X teleconverter, too, if you need longer (420mm effective).

Nikkor 300mm "PF" is small and light, about 1.66 lb.
Nikkor 300mm f/4 ED IF is about 3.2 lb. and doesn't have image stabilization.
Tamron 150-600mm "G2" is about 4.4 lb.
Sigma 150-600mm "C" (contemporary) weighs 4 lb.

Yes, both those 150-600mm are both larger diameter and longer than the prime lenses.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/compare/Nikon_AF-S_NIKKOR_300mm_f_4E_PF_ED_VR_Lens_vs_Nikon_AF-S_NIKKOR_300mm_f_4D_IF-ED_Lens_vs_Tamron_SP_150-600mm_f_5-6.3_Di_VC_USD_G2_for_Nikon_F_vs_Sigma_150-600mm_f_5-6.3_DG_OS_HSM_Contemporary_Lens_for_Nikon_F/BHitems/1111442-REG_207356-GREY_1277357-REG_1082155-REG

Dalbon

Thank you very much for your response as you did give me so much information to think about. I appreciate your time and effort in researching this information and I will start looking at the differences between these lenses. Yes I have several lenses that I use but the Nikon 70-200 AF-S VR is the longest reach lens I have and I use it mostly when photographing people that aren't aware of my being in the area.
Thanks Again, David