Canon 5D - 1/1000 f/9 - 600mm. Willet bird (Tringa
semipalmata) on Morro Strand State
Beach, CA - Taken 1-28-06 on Morro Strand
State Beach, Morro Bay, CA, to document
Willet Wing Patterns.
Author:
Mike Baird. This file is
licensed under
Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 License
Professional bird photographers use 500mm and 600mm
lenses. These are expensive and really large heavy camera lenses. For
example the Canon EF 500mm super telephoto lens is currently selling for
$5,551.95. Bird photography can be very expensive as you need a minimum of 400mm
for bird photography. This has been written in so many magazine articles and photography books that it's
a wonder why there are not more 400mm lenses on the market! Canon makes
the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L. Nikon makes
the NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED AF-S VR lens, a premium ultrafast
telephoto
lens for the Nikon autofocus system that sells for close to $10,000
 There
are two Canon Prime 400mm AF lenses on the market right now, the
affordable ($950.00) 400 f/5.6 Ultrasonic.
and the 400 f/2.8
which is $6,800. They are beautiful lenses but they
are not the only lenses for bird photography.
Nikon makes the 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED AF VR that sells
with a discount price of $1,335. The NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED AF-S VR
sells for around $5,000
Sigma makes the "Bigma" a 50-500
f/4-6.3mm DG which sells at discount camera stores for
around $1,050.
You can couple a long lens with a Kenko
1.4x, Kenko 1.5x or Kenko 2x.
Why Kenko
teleconverters?. Because they work and autofocus with
most lenses with a minimum aperture f/4 or above. So with a
Kenko 1.5x, the Bigma
becomes an 750mm lens or a 2x TC makes the Bigma an 1000mm
lens.. What then is the best lens for bird photography? Well, that all depends on just what you're going after.
One thing constant about all bird lenses is they are big,
heavy and expensive. The
Tokina
80-400 is the least expensive at $549 and the
Sigma
200-500 the most expensive at $28,999
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