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300mm lens for birds ? (1 Viewer)

Bonsaibirder

http://mobro.co/saddinall
Hi,

I am thinking of buying a lens for my wife's digital SLR (*istD Pentax) so that I can use it to take bird photos. From my limited enquiries so far it seems difficult to find a high power telephoto lens for a reasonable price for a Pentax camera. I am looking at Tamron and Sigma - there don't seem to be any other alternatives for this camera. (any thoughts on which company make the better lenses?)

My question is, that since there are some very reasonably priced zoom lenses that go up to 300mm from both of these companies, is 300mm enough for bird photography? Can anyone direct me to some decent bird photos taken with 300mm lenses in the gallery?

I should say that I would be mostly using this lens hand held, while in the field birding and my main purpose would be for record shots of interesting birds and of course for "lucky" instances when birds might perch up for me. If I was to buy a lens longer than 300mm I would probably take along a monopod to steady it.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. I used to photograph bird with a SLR and a 500mm mirror lens (hand held) and I became very dissallusioned - I can count the decent photos I got over ten years on one hand!!

Cheers,
 
you can get some excellent results with a 300mm lens.if you combined it with a 1.5x teleconverter you would then have the equivilent of a 450mm lens.they are about £70.if you click on the gallery and put in a search for 300mm you will get loads of photos up.
mike.
 
Bonsaibirder said:
Hi,

I am thinking of buying a lens for my wife's digital SLR (*istD Pentax) so that I can use it to take bird photos. From my limited enquiries so far it seems difficult to find a high power telephoto lens for a reasonable price for a Pentax camera. I am looking at Tamron and Sigma - there don't seem to be any other alternatives for this camera. (any thoughts on which company make the better lenses?)

My question is, that since there are some very reasonably priced zoom lenses that go up to 300mm from both of these companies, is 300mm enough for bird photography? Can anyone direct me to some decent bird photos taken with 300mm lenses in the gallery?

I should say that I would be mostly using this lens hand held, while in the field birding and my main purpose would be for record shots of interesting birds and of course for "lucky" instances when birds might perch up for me. If I was to buy a lens longer than 300mm I would probably take along a monopod to steady it.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. I used to photograph bird with a SLR and a 500mm mirror lens (hand held) and I became very dissallusioned - I can count the decent photos I got over ten years on one hand!!

Cheers,

Hey Bonsai,

A 300 would be a fine choice as a first lens. There are some very decent 70-300 and 100-300 zooms out there at reasonable prices. (ebay would be a good start)
Your camera will operate at 1.5x because of the APS-C size sensor so a 300mm lense will operate at an effective length of 450mm without doing a thing. That would almost be the same magnification as a 10x set of binocs.

happy birding ... cheers
 
Thanks Mike - I shall have a look at the gallery. I was under the impression that the cheaper sigma lenses did not work with teleconverters. Or perhaps you just lose some of the digital functionality?

Cheers,

mike from ebbw said:
you can get some excellent results with a 300mm lens.if you combined it with a 1.5x teleconverter you would then have the equivilent of a 450mm lens.they are about £70.if you click on the gallery and put in a search for 300mm you will get loads of photos up.
mike.
 
Hi Hawki,

Really appreciate the encouragement from you and Mike.

Is the 450mm "thing" due to the 4/3s "thing". Sorry for getting all technical!

Cheers,

Hawki said:
Hey Bonsai,

A 300 would be a fine choice as a first lens. There are some very decent 70-300 and 100-300 zooms out there at reasonable prices. (ebay would be a good start)
Your camera will operate at 1.5x because of the APS-C size sensor so a 300mm lense will operate at an effective length of 450mm without doing a thing. That would almost be the same magnification as a 10x set of binocs.

happy birding ... cheers
 
no.what the converter does is increase the focal length of your lens by half.eg a 300mm plus half (150mm)= 450mm.you do lose one f stop by using it though.because of the extra lens/glass the light has to pass through.unless the lens has an aperture of 4.5 or more you may lose your autofocus.you can still focus manually though.however saying that both my canon 75-300mm and my sigma 400mm 5.6 lenses still retain the autofocus on my eos 300d so you may be lucky.
just to add what hawki said, because you will be using a digital slr the sensor will also increase the magnification of the lens by half again.so a 300mm lens plus a converter will give you the equivilent focal length of 675mm which is about 13x magnification.enough for anyone!
mike.
 
Last edited:
mike from ebbw said:
.
just to add what hawki said, because you will be using a digital slr the sensor will also increase the magnification of the lens by half again.so a 300mm lens plus a converter will give you the equivilent focal length of 675mm which is about 13x magnification.enough for anyone!
mike.

Which of course like the rest of us you will discover is nowhere near enough and will want more - you can't win
 
But you really should stay away from converters - they degrade quality quite a bit - especially with cheaper zoom lenses such as Sigma and Tamron. If you want more reach then save for a Tamron 200-500mm or one of the Sigma zooms (can be had for not much more than a zoom up to 300mm and a converter) The Sigma 170-500 is reasonably priced.
 
There's obviously conflicting opinions here! I'm fairly new to photography, have a Canon 350D with 75-300mm lens.

I'm really happy with the shots I'm getting but definitely need (ok, want!) more ditsance. How much quality will you lose with a converter, how can I tell which converter fits my lens, and where is the best (cheapest!) place to buy them?

Would I be better off getting a 500mm lens as suggested by rezMole?

All replies and comments appreciated!
 
Hi,
I use a prime 300mm with 1.4X converter. Even with that combination that give a 640mm with the crop factor, it's a bit short. The 300mm alone are very good for mammal or other bigger wildlife or very close bird, but defenitively in the short side for usual birding situation. I'm looking myself for something like a 500mm.
I think this is never ending story, more reach, MORE REACH!
 
whomes said:
There's obviously conflicting opinions here! I'm fairly new to photography, have a Canon 350D with 75-300mm lens.

I'm really happy with the shots I'm getting but definitely need (ok, want!) more ditsance. How much quality will you lose with a converter, how can I tell which converter fits my lens, and where is the best (cheapest!) place to buy them?

Would I be better off getting a 500mm lens as suggested by rezMole?

All replies and comments appreciated!
hi whomes.as for your question as to how much quality you would lose if using a converter.i have attached two pics i took this evening specifically to check for myself.they were both taken on a 300d @1/200 (flash sync)iso 400.the first was taken with a canon 75-300mm usm. the second,same lens but with a kenko 1.5x converter.both were shot at 300mm.i cannot see much difference i dont know about you.
mike.
 

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mike from ebbw said:
hi whomes.as for your question as to how much quality you would lose if using a converter.i have attached two pics i took this evening specifically to check for myself.they were both taken on a 300d @1/200 (flash sync)iso 400.the first was taken with a canon 75-300mm usm. the second,same lens but with a kenko 1.5x converter.both were shot at 300mm.i cannot see much difference i dont know about you.
mike.

I noticed that a lot of the photos in the gallery shot with 300mm lenses are with teleconverters attached, but often these are very high quality prime lenses. Your comparison is interesting Mike but I wonder if using a flash doesn't even things out a bit - ie. it makes sure you have plenty of light in the first place - I am speaking from a true position of ignorance, so I would not be surprised if what I just said was rubbish ;)
 
mike from ebbw said:
hi whomes.as for your question as to how much quality you would lose if using a converter.i have attached two pics i took this evening specifically to check for myself.they were both taken on a 300d @1/200 (flash sync)iso 400.the first was taken with a canon 75-300mm usm. the second,same lens but with a kenko 1.5x converter.both were shot at 300mm.i cannot see much difference i dont know about you.
mike.

Thanks for the 2 responses. It looks like you can pick up a Kenko converter fairly cheap, so I've probably got nothing to lose, as your shots don't look that different to me!

To use a converter or not seems to be a common theme on the forum, and maybe when I get more experienced I'll invest in a bigger lens - it's a pretty big outlay though, I suppose you pay for what you get.
 
Reading other threads it looks like the Kenko pro300 1.4x works well with my lens Canon 75 - 300mm 5.6, with no loss of AF.

Anyone disagree?
 
Bonsaibirder said:
I noticed that a lot of the photos in the gallery shot with 300mm lenses are with teleconverters attached, but often these are very high quality prime lenses. Your comparison is interesting Mike but I wonder if using a flash doesn't even things out a bit - ie. it makes sure you have plenty of light in the first place - I am speaking from a true position of ignorance, so I would not be surprised if what I just said was rubbish ;)
i did not really think about the flash.the only reason i used it was that it was dusk.the reason i took the photos of the pine cones was that i wanted to check the difference in sharpness/saturation etc.i honestly dont think that the flash would have any bearing on the results.incidently my teleconverter is of the cheaper type(£70).
mike.
 
A couple to things to keep in mind here ...
Typically, a quality prime lens with a matched TC will yield very good results. Some of the longer zooms like the BigMa (Sigma 50-500) or the Tamron 200-500 offer one heck of a bang for the money and are not a bad direction to go.
In any case, no matter how much reach you have, it will never be enough. That said, if all birds just stood there and posed, we would all have great results with a portrait lens. Part of the fun is the planning, patiently waiting and learning all about the target bird. When we finally do get that one shot that we were seeking, it makes it all worth while.
Shoot your zoom, try the TC and enjoy the game of getting that shot. If you are happy with the results then you have succeeded. If not, start saving up for the better glass and continue the quest.

cheers and keep us updated.
 
Reading other threads it looks like the Kenko pro300 1.4x works well with my lens Canon 75 - 300mm 5.6, with no loss of AF.
Whomes
That is true. I had a Tamron SP1.4 and it works with my Canon 75-300 and 70-300 IS USM without loss of AF. This is because these Canon Prosumer lens are not compatible with the EF II extenders from Canon, and they have 3 less contact pins on the Camera end of the lens. These pins, all present in the long L Lens,are designed to transmit information to the camera telling it that a converter has been added. Strangely, when I stacked up a Tamron 1.4 onto a Canon EFII 1.4, then to my 300 2.8 L the camera only identify one Converter, so the recorded information is 420mm,F4 instead of588 F5.6 at wide open aperture.
 
Hawki said:
A couple to things to keep in mind here ...
Typically, a quality prime lens with a matched TC will yield very good results. Some of the longer zooms like the BigMa (Sigma 50-500) or the Tamron 200-500 offer one heck of a bang for the money and are not a bad direction to go.
In any case, no matter how much reach you have, it will never be enough. That said, if all birds just stood there and posed, we would all have great results with a portrait lens. Part of the fun is the planning, patiently waiting and learning all about the target bird. When we finally do get that one shot that we were seeking, it makes it all worth while.
Shoot your zoom, try the TC and enjoy the game of getting that shot. If you are happy with the results then you have succeeded. If not, start saving up for the better glass and continue the quest.

cheers and keep us updated.

Wise words indeed Hawki, and thanks to everyone for their input.

I purchased the Kenko tc yesterday and am still getting used to it.

Unfortunately I was still testing it yesterday when I saw my first Kingfisher - the result was some really blurred pictures as I had the camera in AF 'sports' mode when the opportunity arose, and I'm not yet accompished enough to be able to react quick enough with setting changes!

One of the problems is (I think) that I rely far too much on AF, and don't have the confidence to use manual focusig.

Never mind, you live and learn!

philwhomes.com
 
Used the Kenko today with mixed results - great in bright light, not so good in average light.

I presume a 200-500mm Tamron would perform better in a situation where the light wasn't so good?
 
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