Which Lens? Bird Photography Beginner - Help!

[justinslowey]

Hello Guys!

I am an amateur ornithologist and recently got hooked on photography.....mostly Wildlife but landscapes too. Last year I bought myself a Nikon D90 and 18-105mm kit lens. I have learnt a bit about DSLR photography but have not been able to do anything really without a decent Telephoto lens.
I am looking to buy my first 'wildlife' lens. I mostly want to shoot wildlife (predominantly birds but mammals and whatever else I can shoot too) but my passion are Birds. I have been pretty confused by conflicting advice about the right lens I should buy. Plus so much out there- its very dauntig for a beginner like me.
I figured I ought to but at least a 400mm focal length Zoom lenses.
The three I am currently considering are

1. Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF Zoom-Nikkor lens (1800 Aussie Dollars = 1600 USA dollars) . This is my max spend. I was reading that 400mm is not that great ...better to try at least 500mm. What do you think? Or can I use a decent teleconverter with it? I read that this lens are very slow with a teleconverter and the AF is not great either.....hardly works. This true?
2. Sigma lens APO 150-500mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM - 1600 Aussie dollars or 1450 USA dollars.
3. Tamron SP AF200-500mm F/5-6.3 Di LD (IF). 2200 Aussie Dollars or 2000 USA dollars
So....

Question 1: Am I better sticking to a Nikon lens with a Nikon camera (d90)? Better quality and better shots?
Question 2: If I want to use a teleconverter with any of these lens ...can I? will any be better?
Question 3: Do I need a teleconverter straight away or can i get by for a while - I have a fair idea about approaching birds etc to get as close as possible.
Question 4: What would you buy with my max budget of 2000 USA dollars?
PLease help...need to buy one soon as my camera is not being used for what I bought it for!

Thanks a lot!
Justin

[kirbinster]

None of the lenses you listed are particularly fast, which could be an issue unless you have really good light. I have the Tamron 200-500, as I wanted something really long that would not cost a fortune. It is not a bad lens, but not super sharp. I think your price sounds quite high. The printed price on my box was $900 and I bought it used for $500.

Staying under $2,000 I would suggest a used Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VR with a Nikon Teleconverter. That should come in at around $1,800 to $2,000 and will give you a great combination.

[inkista]

No. 200mm isn't long enough for birds. Birds are small and shy and it's hard to fill the frame with them. 400mm really is the minimum. The serious birding photography nuts use 500mm and 600mm lenses. Sometimes with teleconverters. With birds, you can never have too much reach.

Justin, I think you're on the right track.

Question 1: Am I better sticking to a Nikon lens with a Nikon camera (d90)? Better quality and better shots?
No. You have to switch to a Canon camera. Just kidding. I'm a Canon shooter, so I'm mentally subbing the 100-400L for the 80-400 VR (although our 100-400 is USM while the 80-400 is not AF-S), but I think going with the Nikkor is probably going to be your best bet of the selections you mention. While the Sigma/Tamron superteles are great bargains and cost much less than the Nikon/Canon lenses, the performance is typically a step below. And if you plan to use a teleconverter, that kind of quality margin will count.

A 400mm lens, particularly if this is you first supertele, is likely to be a better choice, simply because you can more easily handhold it. A 500mm or 600mm lens requires more than your average strength/stamina to handhold for long periods of time, and are more often used with a tripod/monopod with a special head like a Wimberly that can take the weight.

Question 2: If I want to use a teleconverter with any of these lens ...can I? will any be better?
I actually don't think you want to use a tc with a zoom. The quality hit and the autofocus peformance hit is probably going to be less than happiness-making. I have a 400/5.6 prime and a 1.4x tc and I rarely use them in combination. I'm more often shooting with the naked lens, because of image quality and autofocus issues.

Also, your camera body stops autofocusing when the maximum aperture of the lens hits f/8. Adding a 1.4x tc increases your max. aperture by one stop. A 2x increases it by two stops. So, to keep your autofocus with a 2x tc, you need to start with a f/2.8 lens, and with a 1.4x tc, an f/4 one. At supertele lengths, that costs a fortune. You can dodge this limit by using a non-reporting tc (I have the Tamron one), or by taping over the tc's contacts, but you can't really get around the fact that your autofocus system doesn't have much light to see by. I get hunting and AF "chatter" (where the lens simply can't lock onto focus) with my tc on, especially if the bird is backlit. I tend only to use the tc for perched birds in good light. And it does add softness.

Question 3: Do I need a teleconverter straight away or can i get by for a while - I have a fair idea about approaching birds etc to get as close as possible.
No, you don't need to get one right away. But you will want one because 400mm is the minimum focal length you really need to seriously go after bird photographs, and you'll probably still be cropping on occasion. Obviously, if you have great birding technique, use a hide, pish, etc. and can get close enough you may not need the extra reach of the tc. And of course, a lot depends on what birds you're going after. I mean, rock pigeons and seagulls--you can even use a 50mm.

If you're around really tame birds (say, local wildlife at the San Diego Wild Animal Park), a 400 can easily get you too damn close.



Question 4: What would you buy with my max budget of 2000 USA dollars?
Well, as I said, I got the $1100 EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, but it was a close-fought struggle between that and the $1600 EF 100-400L IS USM (the Canon analog of the 80-400 VR).

If you're really worried about needing more reach, and you want to stay in the $1k price range, I'd say look at the "Bigma" (Sigma 50-500 HSM) as a fourth option. The two main Sigma options right now seem to be the 150-500 OS and the 120-400 OS, but (and I may be placing too much importance on this), lensrentals.com put both of the Bigmos and the 120-400 in their Hall of Shame, and stopped carrying them because of the high failure rate (keep in mind rental lenses get banged about a LOT more than the average lens). The Bigma (50-500) is an older design and unstabilized, so it seems less desirable, but if you're going to use it on a tripod/monopod anyway, stabilization becomes moot. And non-intuitively, it appears to have better performance (especially at 500mm) than the 150-500. Someone on dpreview tested these three lenses side by side with the Canon 100-400L; his review will give you a good idea of the relative strengths of each lens.

[kirbinster]

I had suggested the 70-200 with a TC, not by itself. But the Nikon 70-200 lens is so sharp that you can crop down a picture and still have a better quality image than you may get from some of the longer but less sharp lenses.

Here is one I took a few days ago with my D5000 and Nikon 70--300vr at 300mm:



This one was taken with the Tamron 200-500 on my D300:


This with the D300 and Nikon 70-300vr at 300mm:


Nikon D80 with 70-300vr at 70mm:

[WooD]

I use a Nikon 300 f/4, and add a TC-14EII 1.4 converter when needed.

[ClassicBeth]

To Kirbinster: I love the picture of the robin in the snow. The horizontal direction of the open grass looks really cool with the shallow depth of field. I'm gonna scroll up and look at it again...

[inkista]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

I had suggested the 70-200 with a TC, not by itself. But the Nikon 70-200 lens is so sharp that you can crop down a picture and still have a better quality image than you may get from some of the longer but less sharp lenses. ...

Which is why I'm advocating getting a longer lens that's sharper. Lens+TC just isn't a great full-time solution. But if you're going to take the hit to add one, do you want to put a 1.4x tc on a 200mm to get 280mm, or on a 400mm and get 560mm?

Great pics with the 70-300, but start going for birds on the wing or shyer species, and you'll discover why birders need more reach and fast accurate autofocus.

This white-tailed kite is shot at 400mm on a 1.6x crop body, I've cropped out over two-thirds of the frame, and he's still nervous I'm across the way on a nearby canyon ridge (then again, I'm a newbie to birding and I never use a hide).



I had to back off and try to be unobtrusive for a while before he got comfortable enough to settle down and start eating--if I'd tried to get closer, he'd've flown off. The hardest part for me about bird photography was learning how to bird, and figuring out how close I could physically get without disturbing things.

Some experienced birders told me this was as close as I could get (again, shot with a 400mm) to a Ferruginous Hawk.



Yes. I have no birding skillz.