New birding lens for a E-620? (1 Viewer)

Had the E-620 and 70-300mm lens for a few months now and I've put a good number of shots through this combination and still love. Great for close work though it will search and AF a bit slow. Still having had and indeed still have the wonderful Canon SX50, I find its limited range somewhat frustrating more often than not.
Would the 50-200 SWD lens with 1.4TC give me a better birding kit with greater reach. This might seem a daft question to most but in my defence I'm not a photographer!

flossiepip said:

Had the E-620 and 70-300mm lens for a few months now and I've put a good number of shots through this combination and still love. Great for close work though it will search and AF a bit slow. Still having had and indeed still have the wonderful Canon SX50, I find its limited range somewhat frustrating more often than not.
Would the 50-200 SWD lens with 1.4TC give me a better birding kit with greater reach. This might seem a daft question to most but in my defence I'm not a photographer!

Click to expand...

I have both lenses. Started with the 70-300 and later acquired the 50-200SWD.

The 50-200SWD is a very nice lens. At F/3.5 it's clearly faster than the 70-300, however this advantage will be gone when you couple it with the EC14 (which is a perfect companion to this lens, hardly any noticeable IQ loss). With the EC14 you will get 283mm F/4.9, so it's almost a dead race.

The 50-200SWD has the advantage of higher quality optics and a snappy, responsive AF thanks to the SWD drive.

I decided to keep my 70-300 since it has decent semi-macro capabilities and low weight. Don't use it much, though, and discontinued my E620 in favor of E5.

Attached a sample demonstrating what the 50-200SWD can deliver. 200mm, F/4, 50% crop.