The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Computers, Hi-Tech & Product Reviews Practical Photography For Hunters Good affordable wildlife lensesGo | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| Good affordable wildlife lenses | Login/Join |
| One of Us |
In the thread on the Canon 5D Mark III, Wink described the Nikon AFS 300/4 as one of the best affordable wildlife lenses. Got me thinking of what some other examples of affordable, high quality wildlife lenses might be. Rather than sidetrack the thread, I decided to see if there would be interest in wildlife lenses as a separate topic. Obviously the super fast/long lenses (400/2.8, 500 and 600 f/4, 200-400/4) are excellent, but with several of them we're talking five-figure prices. In addition they run 8 - 12 lb, plus 2 or 3 lb for the camera. On the plus side, today we have (1) crop camera bodies, (2) very good teleconverters, (3) higher ISOs (we aren't shooting K64 anymore) (4) image cropping with computer programs such as Photoshop. I really like the Canon 400/5.6L lens. It is very sharp, has fast focusing, weighs a little under 3 lb and is easy to carry and hand-hold. On a 7D body it is the equivalent of 640mm. Doesn't have image stabilization but in average daylight it's easy enough to keep the shutter speed above 1/1000. In lower light a tripod becomes necessary, but I notice most of the shooters with the 10 lb lenses use tripods anyway, so it's not giving up much. My feeling is I can find ways to cope with a slower maximum aperture and the lack of IS, but there's no way to compensate for lack of sharpness. Current price for the 400/5.6 is around $1,300. I see Canon has a 400/4 DO which is still expensive at over $6,500, but much less than the 400/2.8. It weighs about half of what the 400/2.8 weighs. Andy Rouse gave it a good review as I recall. I'd like to see more options with high-quality long lenses, slower max apertures and more affordable prices. For example a Nikon 400/4 or a Canon or Nikon 500/5.6 with top quality optics. I'd even sacrifice IS if it would get the price down to $3,000 or so. Curious to hear what others are using for wildlife. I haven't used teleconverters for many years, maybe it is time to try them again. | ||
|
One of Us |
On a Nikon, the 300mm f/4 can be used with a teleconvertor, I think the TC III 1.4 is considered best option. It costs (I think) around $500. I've got one and it works well, not losing much IQ. But for my purposes I can use it as a 300mm on my D700 or as a 450mm on my D7000. Note that there is no image stabilizaton and you lose an f stop. If I were to put the teleconvertor on the D7000, and therefore get something lke a 630mm I know I would never be able to hold it steady enough for the kind of photography I do without resorting to a tripod, and autofocus will start to get "iffy" in low light. Last time I took pictures at the Nairobi National Park I took the D700 with the 28-300mm zoom on it, and the D7000 coupled with the 300mm prime. That gave me a couple of good options and lots of flexibility. _________________________________ AR, where the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history become the nattering nabobs of negativisim. | |||
|
| One of Us |
Wink, your outstanding bird photos on the Natural World forum (Puffins, Razorbills, Gannets) sure help make a case for the 300/4. When I bought the Canon lens I was looking at three options: the 400/5.6, the 100-400/4-5.6, and the 300/4 with 1.4TC. The zoom and the 300 options were more money but would have added IS. Still not certain I made the right choice, though as I said, I really like the 400/5.6. Very sharp, and focuses fast enough I get a pretty good percentage of keepers with birds in flight. I said earlier it is easy to carry and hand-hold, it would be more accurate to say it is easy to carry and "can be" hand-held. Just as with shooting a rifle I always look for some kind of support, and seldom shoot offhand. Reviews I read of the 100-400 often said it was soft at 400, plus it seems due for a redesign soon. I don't regret not getting it, but the 300/4 with TC might have been a more versatile choice. Your good opinion of the lens carries a lot of weight with me. I know its a Nikon/Canon thing, in my view the Canon L lenses are about as good as the top Nikons. I still have several fine old Nikkor AI lenses from the '70s and '80s, manual focus of course, and a D300 body to use with them. i keep hoping to find an older manual 500/4 Nikkor at a reasonable price but apparently lots of others have the same idea. | |||
|
| One of Us |
Dave . I Think you must try the sigma 300 f 2.8 or the sigma 120-300f 2.8 . I use the 120-300 fore professional photografy I am a photojournalist. I also have the canon 70-200 f 2.8 and a canon 100-400 but after i Got the 120-300 the canon stays in the photobag. On the D7 and with a 2xtc you get 600 f 5,6 and still autofocus. For wildlife and for sports photografy I strongly recoment the sigma. Sigma rumors says they Will come up with Long lenses 400 f 2.8 ,500 mm f4 and longer to a lower Price than Nikon and Canon. The sigma I have is fast in fokus pin sharp and I Love the lens. Hunt safe wisent | |||
|
| One of Us |
wisent, thanks for the suggestions. I checked out the lenses you mentioned on the B&H web site. It shows the 120-300 for $3,600, the 300/2.8 for $3,400 and a 500/4.5 for $5,000 (actually one dollar less in each case). I notice the user reviews for all these lenses are mostly very positive. These prices all seem kind of scary to me, but I suppose compared to the $8,000 - 12,000 prices for the Canon and Nikon big lenses they are actually quite reasonable. All these lenses are heavy of course but as the yuppies say there's no such thing as a free brunch. May have to give one of these a try. My local dealer stocks Sigma lenses and speaks highly of them. Except for one (not very good) Vivitar lens about 40 years ago, I've used only Nikon and Canon. I hope I'm not a brand name snob but I fear the worst. It's better not to go rooting around too much into subconscious motivations! | |||
|
| One of Us |
Dave, I don't know enough about Canon cameras and lenses to give any advice on strength and weaknesses of any particular combination. What I do know however is that when I learn as much as I can about what I've got I can play to its strong points and get the most out of the equipment. By that I mean that an f/2.8 exotic lens will certainly give you a whole lot of flexibility and options that a slower and less expensive won't offer, but when stopped down to f/8 the differences become much less noticeable. So I work on my technique, don't ask more of the equipment than it can give and try to use it where it gives its best. Frankly, for digital output (and by that I mean no huge printed enlargements but mostly web posting) you would have a hard time telling the difference. Once you look at the problem that way you go after photographs a little differently. When I use my 28-300mm zoom I avoid the long end (just back off slightly to say 250mm) and shoot at f/8 and all of sudden IQ ain't bad at all. My camera bodies can take excellent pics at up to 800 ISO and in a pinch ISO 1600 can work just fine in even lighting where I don't require the maximum dynamic range. You can get great photographs with a whole range of affordable lenses that way. _________________________________ AR, where the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history become the nattering nabobs of negativisim. | |||
|
| One of Us |
Wink, good advice as always and I agree completely. Just as an aside reading some of the previous threads makes me wish more people would use this forum. There's been lots of rock-solid advice from knowledgeable people like yourself, wisent, Saeed and a few others. A couple other lenses I should mention: Canon makes four 70-200 L zooms (f/2.8 and f/4, both available with or without IS). I bought the least expensive, an f/4 w/o IS, I think it was around $750. The 2.8 with IS is about 3X as much. It did mean giving up some speed and IS, but as you noted there are ways to compensate, with shutter speed, supports, ISO. Most importantly to me, the lens gives up nothing in terms of optics and build quality. Hard to compensate for sharpness that isn't there. Shoot all of these four with the same settings, say ISO 800, 1/1000 @ f/8 and the images will be identical, or very nearly so. When sightseeing in Scotland last summer I mostly used a 24-105 on the 5D Mk II, and the 70-200 on the 7D (equivalent to 112-320 on full frame). If we were specifically going after birds I'd take the 400 instead of the 70-200. I'm still loyal to Nikon after 40 years (it was video made me try the Canons). I use the D300 with my old 55/3.5 micro Nikkor a lot for tabletop product photos. In 2008 I bought the 80-400 Nikon and used it in Africa. A pretty good lens, sharp enough for my purposes, though the autofocus was slow, loud, and tended to hunt a bit. But it got me photos I'd have missed without it. My wife likes taking bird photos and got some good ones with this lens despite its shortcomings. For last Christmas I traded it in and gave her the newer 80-400 Nikon. I think it's a really good lens, sharper than the old one especially at 400mm, and autofocus is far better. But at $2,500 it's near the top end of what I consider affordable, and it is fairly heavy at 3.5 lb. As you know and have written about in previous threads, digital cameras have useful options which many photographers never use. For example the 400 didn't focus precisely with either camera. and needed a bit of microadjusting using the camera controls. Likewise there are camera adjustments for color balance and for personal taste in color, brightness, and contrast. They can make a big difference, and don't cost a thing. I do an occasional 16x20 for personal use but otherwise no big enlargements. Quite a few are for magazine publications but even those are mostly 1/8 or 1/4 page, with only a very few full pagers, still only 8 1/2 x 11. Still, editors can be fussy. I did photos of a rifle in a rustic woodsy setting once, thinking in daylight I wouldn't need a tripod. It turned out to be a bit gloomier in the woods than I had anticipated. I shot handheld at 1/125 or so, lens at about 100mm, and thought the photos (K-64 transparencies) looked plenty sharp. The editor sent a message, "nice composition, good lighting, just barely sharp enough to print. Use your tripod next time." And I thought he wouldn't notice! | |||
|
| One of Us |
Dave, I have the EF 400mm f/5.6L, and it is a great lens in regards to focusing speed and sharpness, but while a 300mm f/2.8 costs almost four times as much(around $3899), this lens too is extremely sharp, even with tele-converters. I sometimes feel that I should have purchased this 300L instead of the 400L, since it would have given me more reach than the 400L using from 1x to 2x teleconverters while still gathering more light. But without teleconverters the 300mm f/4L is an excellent lens, and still costs a little over $1,000. I will probably buy a 300mm f/4L without IS one of these days, since it is perfect for taking photos of the local sled dog races and skijoring (below):  In Alaska we have plenty of daylight by March, so f/4 or even f/5.6 is not bad at all. But a 300mm f/2.8 would be perfect paired with a couple of teleconverters. Another prime that's outstanding in regards to sharpness, cost, and fast-focusing is the EF 200mm f/2.8L USM II (black color with a red ring in front, and no IS). This lens can be had for around $800.00. | |||
|
| One of Us |
Ray, nice photo, three athletes all giving their best. I did a lot of reading online while trying to decide between the 400/5.6 and the 300/4 with 1.4 teleconverter. Still not sure I made the right choice, though I certainly do like the 400. The 300/4 with TC would have been a fair bit more money but on the other hand more versatile as it gives options of both 300 and 420, plus it has IS. I've also been looking at Sigma lenses, as recommended by wisent in an earlier post. My local dealer said several pros have bought the 120-300/2.8 and all speak very highly of it. The Sigma 300/2.8 is currently around $3,400 which is still important money to me. The dealer says the feedback he gets from customers suggests the top Sigma lenses are very competitive with Canon/Nikon in build quality and optics. The 300/2.8 Canon L of course would be superb. Andy Rouse, the outstanding UK-based wildlife photographer, speaks highly of it. He points out that with a 2X TC it gives a very capable 600/5.6. But currently at B&H it lists at around $6,800. Price aside these super teles are generally so darn heavy. They almost need a tripod, and a serious tripod at that, with a Wimberley gimbal head - all of which adds to weight and cost. Interesting you mention the 200/2.8 as I also had a look at it while in the store. I actually intended to buy it last summer but the store was out of stock, and with a trip coming up in a couple of weeks I got the 70-200/4 instead - and yes, still second-guessing myself on that one too! | |||
|
| One of Us |
your dealer is not telling you a lie . The new sigma are very good for the price. take a tour on this link http://photography-on-the.net/...wthread.php?t=277729 and this is the old version lens - now there is a 3 generations of the sigma 120mm-300mm f2.8 hunt safe wisent | |||
|
| One of Us |
just purchased a Sigma 150mm-500mm with optical stabilization for just over $800.00. Nice lens for the money. It's not the fastest but the price wasn't sky high either; just waiting for the rain to let up so we can use it. | |||
|
| One of Us |
Wifey called me today and said my new lens arrived. I got the ef 100-400 canon with the is. Can't wait to get home and try it out. Gave 1269.00 delivered to the house. Keep yer powder dry and yer knife sharp. | |||
|
| One of Us |
You won't go wrong with that lens. Enjoy it  | |||
|
| One of Us |
With what I plan on dong with it the guy said that was the one I wanted. I told him I could spend the money but wanted my dollar's worth so to speak. wifey likes to take pictures of the pie-bald deer on our place during hunting season and in about a month we are going to Yellowstone for a couple of weeks. I usually take the camera with me on haul jobs. Now we have a 75-300mm we use, this should be much better. Okie Keep yer powder dry and yer knife sharp. | |||
|
| Powered by Social Strata |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
Visit our on-line store for AR Memorabilia