Heron and Ospreys

jonh68

These were shot with a Canon Mark IIN and 300 f4 with 1.4 TC. I think I may have to get a 300 f4 for the nikon system. It's much lighter than the 300 2.8 and easier for handholding.

Harryb

Good shots Jon and the 300 F/4 would be a good buy. Right now its my main wildlife lens.

jonh68

Harryb wrote:

Good shots Jon and the 300 F/4 would be a good buy. Right now its my main wildlife lens.

Would you recommend that and a TC over the new sigma 150-500 with OS if the optics are the same as the Bigma? Of course, my D50 is useless now for wildlife so I have to replace or upgrade my camera first. I want the D300 badly, but I would have to wait a while for it. I have a D1H right now and a Canon Mark II N from the paper I use.

I have the use of the 300 2.8, but I find it's best for sports on a monopod. For wildlife, I like walking around in special ops mode and that 300 2.8 just gets in the way.

Harryb

jonh68 wrote:

Would you recommend that and a TC over the new sigma 150-500 with OS if the optics are the same as the Bigma? Of course, my D50 is useless now for wildlife so I have to replace or upgrade my camera first. I want the D300 badly, but I would have to wait a while for it. I have a D1H right now and a Canon Mark II N from the paper I use.

I have the use of the 300 2.8, but I find it's best for sports on a monopod. For wildlife, I like walking around in special ops mode and that 300 2.8 just gets in the way.

The 300mm f/4 works very well with TCs. With the D2X and the D200 I used the 1.4 TC with excellent results but the 1.7 TC slowed down the AF too much to be useful for flight and/or action shots. With the D3 and the D300 its a different story. I now use the 1.7 regularly with both cameras and the AF is quite speedy. This gives me a lens that I can handhhold with 510mm reach (715mm with the D300's crop factor).

I can recommend it very easily over the Bigma but I don't know enough about the 150-500 to speak on it.

jonh68

Thanks for the reply. I eventually want to step up to the d300. Since I do sports, I think it would be better to have a 300 reasonably fast and then be able to use TC's for more reach.

Giphsub

great shots. I really like the head sticking out of the left side of the nest in #4

jonh68

Giphsub wrote:

great shots. I really like the head sticking out of the left side of the nest in #4

Thanks! If you notice the one on the right, the stick is not in the way, but it's actually in the mouth of the osprey and it was doing some remodeling.

Giphsub

Actually, ospreys always strike me as very comical looking birds...