Sigma 150-600 sport

Sadly these "super zooms" are useless with TCs and not much good without them as well IMO. If anything, the Canon EF 100-400 Series II should be good with at least an EF 1.4x TC and is a very good lens from what I hear from top photographers overseas. However, it's still not an ideal lens with 400mm on the long end and a slow AF lens with a TC attached.

I always tell folks if they can afford it is to buy a fixed super telephoto lens. You cannot beat the image quality of those lenses even with a 2x TC. While they are expensive still, the series I Canon super teles (500/4L IS USM and 600/4L IS USM) are simply incredible lenses to photograph birds with.

Another thing I tell folks is that in my ten plus years of bird photography I can still pretty much count on one hand when I really needed a very short lens anyway. 400mm as a minimum is required and even that's not enough to get the best quality shots in many instances, unless you're on a pelagic (70-200 is ideal) or you're photographing ridiculously tame birds. Hence why I always suggest FIXED focal length for birds and wildlife as a general rule.

It's all about image quality. Period. 

You tell me how many well-known wildlife photographers who actually know what they're doing use the super zoom lenses like the Tamrons or Sigmas. I rest my case there. 

From day one I knew that to get the best results I would need the best possible gear I can afford to do the job and never looked past the L series lenses. The 300/4L IS USM blew me away with the image quality and with a matching Canon EF 1.4x and EF 2x. Same as my 500/4L IS USM. 

I can tell you none that I know. It all comes down to image quality and lots of it. 

I have absolutely no idea what you're saying about "does not play well with your Canon extenders?" 

Cheers and wish you well with your zoom lenses in that instance. 

I'm sure you are correct wrt the comparison between primes and zooms.  But the sad thing is that your 500 and 600 primes come in at a total of $24 000 whereas the 150-600 is  about 1/10 of that.  Are the primes 10x the lens of the zoom? - well that is a matter of opinion that I can't comment on because I dont have any super primes and probably never will have.

What is not a matter of opinion is that a $13 000, 600mm lens is out of the financial reach of most people, but a $2400 zoom may well be within reach.

As for which lens to use, yes if you shoot birds only "the longer the better" will do,  but personally I like my 50mm, fisheye, 180mm etc. because while I love photographing birds, there is a lot more out there worthy of my time and effort.

Tim

So true Akos, so true.

I tried to use one at the footy "once" I thought  it might be easier than swaping between the 500mm on the mono and the shorter zoom , I had a look at the photos on the laptop at quarter time ,4 keepers out of  80 shots ,thats just not good enough my 150-500 can do better than that even with its much slower AF, and I leave that at home too.

I returned it to its owner who still thinks its the best zoom lens he has ever used ,horses for courses I guess.

Incidentally, I do agree that the newest versions of super teles are very expensive and while I can easily afford one, I would think twice about it just for the sake of having the latest and greatest lens.

Mine is the series I 500/4L IS USM and paid less than 7k for it about four years ago. It's simply the sharpest lens I've ever owned and I thank my wife every day for letting me buy it.

If I'm ever in a situation where I am too close to a bird, I just think of my composition. It does come with years of experience and I never once wished I had a zoom. Ok, maybe the 200-400/4L IS USM with the 1.4x built-in. Now that to me is a zoom worth having for you'd have incredibly good IQ from all focal length combinations.

I honestly don't get how folks think you can easily get away with shorter lenses, of course unless one crops the crap out of their images or gets very close. I used a 300/1.4x combo for years and always wished for about twice that focal length at least. It's doable, but not always unfortunately. Using that from a hide or a vehicle makes for an easier approach and true, I got many great images, however, I knew I needed at least 700mm as a minimum in many instances.

I often read people with the latest 1Dx and 500 combos that to them a 50% crop is nothing. That makes me cringe to say the least. Plenty I see on Facebook. That in most instances equals nothing but poor fieldcraft and sloppiness in my book. Then again, that's my opinon and no one else needs to agree. More pixels to me mean better IQ images when I get them as large as I want in the RAW file with minimal (or no) cropping. Not to make me a sloppy field craftsman and show off to the world that I have the latest gear. And the sad part is, some of these clowns are now teaching others how to be (a sloppy most certainly) photographer. 

I try to always try to compose in camera so I do not have to crop at all, or crop very little. That's simply the best way to get very high IQ images in my files.

As long as we all have fun though!

I use the sigma, its a very heavy lens so needs care in use.

But the quality is there, the advantage of a zoom is it allows you to adjust for the size of the bird, - say if you are working at a waterhole where birds as large as herons and as small as finches can come by.

 very handy when working from a hide.

Thank you Devster. Appreciate your kind words. You are dead right.

I mean no offence to Shorty at all.

I do work full time and still can't afford a 500 prime :(   I too would prefer to have 4 days off!

Hi Rawshorty,

Your images appear quite dark and I see your exposures were ISO 125 @ 1/400 for the first image and ISO 250 @  1/500 for the second image. For a 600mm lens the ISO needs to be a lot higher than that, say ISO 1000 and the shutter speed should be at least the reciprocal of the focal length ie. a 600mm lens should be at least 1/600 second on a full frame camera and 600mm x the crop factor on a crop camera.ie. 600mm x 1.5 crop factor = 1/900 sec.  This helps to eliminate shake and vibration unless it is on a good sturdy tripod and correct exposure is very critical with long zoom lenses.

I use a 150-600 Tamron for birds and I use back button focusing, Shutter priority, spot focus, dynamic metering and Auto ISO with the maximum ISO set at ISO 3200 on a Nikon D810 full frame camera.  I also turn off the 51 point metering as well as this averages out the readings.

Bear in mind if you use spot focus this is the most accurate method but if you slip off the target the lens will focus on the next closest object and that may well be that hill 20km away.  All DSLRs have two focusing systems, averaging from multiple points and spot.  Spot focus uses the contrast between two colours so focusing on a crows eye may not work as there is little or no contrast. Focus on the cockatoos white feathers may give similar results ie. slightly out of focus.

I hope this helps,

Dougt