On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 22:24:20 -0500, you wrote: >> You really only need a 600/4 and 1.4x TC for birdies. > A subject of interest to me, so comments interspersed. > >A 600/4 monster is pretty useless for many "birdy" situations. It's >great on a tripod for shooting birds that are not moving around much >and who will sit still long enough for you to set up, assuming that >you can get your tripod set up on suitable ground. (I'm thinking of >marsh birds or shore birds, perhaps.)
Weight is the one real drawback to the big lenses, which include the 400/2.8, 250-600/5.6, and 600/4. Smaller lenses such as 300/2.8. 600/5.6, and even a Nikon 500/4 are not heavy enough to make weight a serious limiting factor. I've never experienced any difficulty shooting marsh or shore birds - but then I don't take the 600 into the water, and often don't even set up a tripod. I leave carrying such a lens over water to the more adventurous, or those to whom sinking an expensive lens might be part of the cost of doing business. >However, the lens is not very portable, and it certainly isn't >hand-holdable (I can just about hand-hold an A* 600/5.6 in bright >light conditions with 400 ASA film). Even a sturdy monopod would be >taxed by a 600/4 cannon (that's with a "double-n" - <g>). If you >have to walk very far to get to the birdies you'd better buy an >army-surplus caisson to help transport it, but forget it if the >terrain is rough. If anyone is carrying a big lens very far to get bird photos, they better be backpacking to a blind, or some other spot already scouted. It's no secret that birds flee from human contact. The birds circle of fear is proportional to the amount of regular human contact they have. In remote locations, there won't be a bird within twenty yards of a human crashing through the underbrush. > >Then, I don't picture using such a lens on pelagic birds from a >boat. And, I can't picture traipsing through dense woods to shoot >birds in the puckerbrush, and thickets, either. (Good luck to you >if a bird lands less than 5 meters - about 16.5 feet - away from >you.) In my part of the birding world (Texas and Florida for awhile, now Arizona) birds are abundant at the edge of clearings - not in dense woods. Owls and some woodpeckers like the interior a little, but usually dense woods are not nearly as good a place to go birding as the scrubby transition area between woods and field. The best "thicket" birding is from the car, parked on the shoulder of a less-traveled road, often right in the city at the edge of a development. This is where the really big glass shines - shooting from a blind, and a car is an excellent blind. The use of a car reduces the drawback of lens weight, and the minimum focus distance seldom comes into play. If it does, a 25mm Kenko AF extension tube helps a lot. >Mind you, this is really not any criticism of the design or the >optical properties of the F* or FA* 600/4 lenses, but is just a >"devil's advocate" rebuttal to the concept that "you really only >need a 600/4 and 1.4x TC for birdies". It is probably a great lens >for its purposes, but its purposes don't cover a lot of good birding >situations. A lot of good bird photography can be done without "a >600/4 and 1.4x TC". > >Fred My comment about needing a 600/4 and TC is a tongue-in-cheek comment I've made many times in the past. I hold to it a little, but it's not all that defensible. The 600/4 is very heavy, very expensive, and requires a host of expensive accessories. One has to plan to use it - it is not the lens to keep in the trunk for spur-of-the-moment outings. And hand-holding is out of the question except for an occasional grunt-and-hope shot. I've used my 600/4 in many modes, from tripod setup at a blind, to a walk-around lens on a monopod, to a pack-in situation. I've carried it on the passenger seat of the car, hooked to a short monopod, ready to point through the car window. I've even shot it from flat on my back, holding it above my face shooting directly up into a tree. I've lugged it as much as eight miles in one day (that was a very long day), but normally I limit myself to a two mile round trip. But all that weight is a lot easier on the younger crowd. Now that I am nearer to a hundred than not, I'm heeding the siren call of digital and its 1.5x FOV crop. So I carry a fairly light 300/4 and 1.4x TC, on a monopod, and get 315 shots per roll at an effective focal length of 630/f5.6 with the fabulous close-focus ability of 1:3 Macro. Now that's a walk-around setup for birding! -- John Mustarde www.photolin.com
