Hi From Haverhill, MA USA (1 Viewer)

Hello all....

I'm a previous Nikon D70 owner who had recently moved up to a D2H and glad that I did.

My main bird shooting venue currently is the Parker River / Plum Island National Seashore in Newburyport / Plum Island MA.

My main birding lens, a Nikon 80-400 VR is frustrating the hell out of me as I'm having big problems getting sharp images out of this with the VR on full handheld even at high shutter speeds. To be honest, many of my best shots have been while panning moving targets?

I'm struggling with the nicety of a zoom vs. the constraints of a fixed lens. As most of my birding is jump shooting or actively hunting birds in trees, my opinion is that I'm limited to a 300 plus TC for the most part, with the ability to carry it and shoot handheld on a moments notice.

My guess is that this forum will help me to sort all of this out over time

I'll be chatting with ya!

Jim Fenton

Hi Jim and welcome to Birdforum from the Moderators and Staff.
You're sure to get plenty of photography help on here.

Hi Jim, welcome to birdforum. Hope you enjoy the site and look forward to seeing some of your shots in the gallery. Always good to have another Nikon user on board
I'm not familiar with the 80-400 but I know we have plenty of members using it .. I was considering it as a purchase but will be saving for the D2X this year instead. My bird photography is a bit more sedate than yours, so a tripod and longer lens is o.k. for much of the time.
Regards,
Andy

Welcome from another Massachusetts member. I think you'll find this is a great site. Re your lens, I use a Canon 100-400 for the same kind of grab shots and find that autofocus is always hit-and-miss with a moving target and distracting vegetation. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If yours never works, you might have a problem with the lens. Have you had it checked out in a shop? Can you get a sharp shot of an easy target, like a sheet of newspaper? If not, it probably needs to go under the knife. Good luck, Glen

Hi Glen

As I do get SOME sharp shots, my guess is that it's my holding technique although I use the VR and a high shutter speed. Then again, it could be the particular VR mode that I'm using so I will try the other this weekend as well as with none.

What I really need to do is shoot this on a tripod for a comparison...my bet is that it will be sharp that way. Hopefully I can refine something!

Nice to see another MA person here

Jim Fenton
Haverhill, MA