Which 300-400mm lens?

[rob_sheneman]

I know this is an area of much debate, but I'll ask anyhow. I'm using EOS equipmnet (A2 is my primary body), and I've got up to 200mm with my 80-200 f2.8L. I'm looking to get up in the 300-400 range for sports and wildlife (local birds, small mammals, etc). I'm not really interested in third party lenses (tried some in the shorter lengths and "traded up" to Canon L series glass for the most part).

 

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I'm leaning to the 300f/4L (either IS or non) and a 1.4xTC. Is the old f/4 really sharper than the new IS lens? Any real data yet? The 300f/2.8 would be ideal, but it's REALLY stretching the budget for me. With the f/4 lens at least I'll be shooting pictures (for half the $$)and not saving my pennies and dreaming. I'm not a pro (I am covering some of my costs for this hobby right now) and don't want to "starve my family" to afford the fast glass.

 

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Comments, suggestions, experiences are all welcome.

[mark_ci]

The 300 f/4 is a whole lot less than "half the $$." Less than a quarter, in fact. I don't think you can go wrong buying one of these . It's too short for birds a lot of the time, but the 2.8 will be too (though it will work better with the 2x TC). The 2.8 also weighs twice as much.<P>I don't think anyone has a definitive answer on the optical quality of the IS version yet. I'm sort of waiting this out myself -- I'd be willing to pay the extra $500, but not the extra money plus a performance penalty.

[jeff_hallett]

regardless of of what many die hard canon or nikon system users

 

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may say, i have used sigma,s 400 5.6 APO macro for 3 years now

 

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and my schneider 8x loupe shows me tack sharpness. i have been

 

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published by nature photographer, florida wildlife and have sold,

 

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i think, at least 15 stock slides all of which were taken with this

 

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lens. true it is a little slow(when you look in nature magazines,

 

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how many shots do find that were taken at 2.8 and few at 4.0. this

 

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has not been a problem for me. true the autofocus is not as swift

 

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as canon,s but is fast enough for my applications.

 

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canon,s counterpart costs is way over $1400, nikon,s is $2180 and

 

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sigma,s is $630. and incidently, popular photography tested both

 

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and the image quality was slightly in favor of sigma. it,s light

 

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and has a nice tripod collar and big built-in lens hood. i know

 

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you will be as pleased with this lens as i am. believe me much of

 

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this " big glass" is overpriced, overrated and just too darn heavy

 

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to lug around in the field. just my opinion guys!! jeff FL

[dan_smith]

Some will disagree with me, but go with a 400 to a 600. If you are really going to do small animals & birds, things such as ducks at nest and that, the bigger glass will be worth the extra $$$ and weight. A 400 with a 1.4 converter is a 560 with the loss of 1 stop of light. A 500 becomes a 700 and a 600 becomes an 840. I shoot wildlife at our local NWR every week. A lot of the areas have some birds that are approachable. A 300 just doesn't do it. It isn't big enough. I do know of the $$$ problems & don't go broke just to get the larger aperture. But unless you are something unusual & fabulous, you will find yourself constantly wishing you had something bigger on the camera. Bigger than a 300 or 420. As for close work, an extension tube will work well along with the 1.4 converter. I don't know if Canon still makes the equivalent oftheir old 500 4.5 fluorite lens for the EOS, but if so it is most likely very, very good. Some of the aftermarket lenses will be very good, but if you stick with what Canon makes you eliminate all the compatability problems before they arise. Good luck.

[don_baccus]

Canon does make the 500/4.5 lens Dan refers to in the EF mount. Problem is that it sells for more than the 300/2.8 so it appears to be out of our questioner's price range.

 

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Would it help if we talked to your family and explained why you need one? :)

 

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Another possibility would be something like a tamron 300/2.8 and a 2x extender. This would be cheaper than the canon route, but would get you a 600/5.6 of reasonable quality. You'll find a tremendous difference in the number of successful photo ops for birds you'll get at 600 vs. 400, I'm afraid. There's just no way around this. The new IS lens would give you a 600/8 with a 2x, and perhaps the IS feature would make this more practicle than has been true in the past. Still, subject movement's a factor and no amount of IS technology can fix that.

 

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Lastly, you could look at buying something like a used manual-focus Nikkor 400/3.5 + 1.4x and an FM2 or something. Though I'm a Canon user, I also forked out the bucks for big EF glass. If I had to choose between used manual-focus top-quality used equipment (which mostly means Nikon at the moment) and no big glass, I'd choose big glass every time. The inconvenience of owning a hybrid, two-vendor system beats the inconvenience of constantly throwing out photos of birds that look like little dots, which is going to happen if you don't find some way to get near 600mm with a reasonable aperture. I just met a fellow last week who bought a month-old MF Nikkor 500/4 plus 1.4x for $3,000 - the guy decided to switch to Canon after buying it and was in a hurry, perhaps because spring shooting season was just around the corner. Can't beat that kind of price. This used Nikkor big glass stuff will hold its value forever, even if you don't get a particularly great deal, so if you have the ability to raise the cash in a sense you're not really spending anything. EF big glass holds up, too, you just need a lot more cash to get into it...

 

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Whether or not "big glass" is overpriced (I like my 600/4 much more than my car, and it actually cost quite a bit less), these large telephotos certainly are not overrated. And the exercise involved in lugging them around is good for you.

[jeff_hallett]

i have found myself standing next to friends and aquaintences with

 

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big glass at places such as the everglades, sanibel, corkscrew

 

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swamp etc. and i have my lowly little sigma 400 5.6 and a 1.4x tele

 

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if i have to and at our get togethers, i find my shots as sharp

 

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and contrasty as theirs and i,m getting published too. so this

 

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lens can,t be all that bad but if you love your big glass use it,

 

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enjoy it but i am not pining for it and i have $$ left to afford

 

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other things. if you get a chance to try this lens and sigma,s

 

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70-300 4.5-5.6 APO macro you will be pleasantly surprised with your

results.

[craig_andrew_yuill]

To answer how the Tamron 300mm f/2.8 does with a 2x converter, I'd say that it does okay. Unfortunately I can't say much more than that because I was taking photos of songbirds, usually in a hurry, and messed up my focus or shook the camera and lens enough to soften the image, meaning that I couldn't get a true idea about how sharp the lens really is with a converter. As it was a rental I had to return it by a certain time, so I couldn't do "formal" tests. But I did get one photo of a red-epauletted blackbird that was sharp enough for my tastes. BTW, I used the Tamron 2X "flat-field" converter with the lens.

 

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One thing that I did find out is that the 600mm focal length is almost a necessity for taking pictures of birds while out in the open.

[don_baccus]

I, too, have gotten many decent photographs at Sanibel and the like with my old 400/5.6 Sigma APO, Jeff. Indeed, once I had to shoo a snowy egret away from me so I could shoot it with a 135mm lens, as it kept insisting on presenting me a fish (in case you're curious, I look NOTHING like a female snowy egret).

 

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However, the kind of photography you describe represents photography of, oh, perhaps 30 species in an area where birds are well-known to be nearly tame. And these species are large species. There are hundreds of common species of bird in North America, and over 700 altogether.

 

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While I'm glad you're getting published (and if the market for florida big birds is still that active, maybe I should revisit), this is a very narrow view of bird photography.

 

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It wasn't shooting big birds in Florida (which I've done a few times) which caused me to decide to buy big glass. It was the frustration trying to effectively shoot passerines and peeps that did it. And,

I'll have to say, I got more good photos more quickly in Florida using my 600 (often with 1.4x) than I ever did in earlier visits with my 400 - and was able to get good photos of a wider suite of species.

 

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If the original poster is mostly interested in shooting egrets, herons, glossy ibis, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, anhinga, purple gallinule, common moorhen, (maybe) red-shouldered hawk, barred owl, and the like - then a 400/5.6 and a plane ticket to Florida makes a lot of sense. If he really wants to advance as a bird photographer, which to me means tackling tough subjects, not just gimmes, he'll find a 400/5.6 limiting very quickly. In particular, most passerines, which represent about 1/2 of our species, are extremely difficult to approach that closely except during, say, warbler fallouts and similar events. And 600/8 is too slow with fine-grained film for these often quick-moving birds. If you want to occasionally get good photos during exceptional opportunities, shorter glass will work (I just shot a forster's tern with a 300 that was hovering a few feet from my

car window two weeks ago). What bigger glass gets you is the ability to steadily pull in good, salable shots of a lot of species at a steady pace.

 

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I'm not putting you down, I'm just pointing out that you're describing a VERY narrow slice of bird photography. Another example of bird photography which can be done with shorter lenses is hummingbird photography. While fun, rewarding, publishable, and all that, it still is just a slice of bird photography...

 

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If you decide you want to tackle broader areas of bird photography, you're going to quickly find out the limitations of a 400/5.6 with or without extenders, as I and so many others have. I think you'll find that many of us started just where you are...the fact that I've sold a a snowy plover shot taken with that old 400/5.6 and tamron 2x (!) not once, but twice, only convinced me that a 600/4 + 1.4x would be far more useful than that combination.

 

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On the other hand, you do raise a very good point, which is that it is possible to choose to specialize in a certain type of bird photography and thereby keep one's need for big glass down.

 

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Though the newer Sigma is reputed to be a bit sharper than the older one I used, my Canon 300/2.8 + 2x is sharper than my old Sigma 400/5.6 with no extender. I was surprised by this, frankly. And my 600/4, especially stopped down to 5.6, is noticably sharper than the 300/2.8 + 2x. If you're getting results as sharp as friends using a 600/4 from Nikon or Canon, then they've got problems with their technique.

 

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Or perhaps the slide projector used at your get togethers...

[duane_galensky]

I think the 400/5.6 Sigma (current close focusing design) is probably the best way to get started. If you're lucky enough to be at Ding Darling, Corkscrew, etc., then subjects will be large enough and docile enough to make great photographs with this lens without an extender. For most shooting around the 'hood, though, I find that I very often need to be operating at much longer lengths. Putting an extender on the Sigma is probably pushing it: 1.4 might be OK in a pinch, but a 2x would probably be poor (considering that a 2x on most lenses is at best fair...besides, you'd be at f/11!) The good news is you can add another lens later if you find yourself in the same situation...the Sigma will still come in handy.

[paul_wilson2]

To Don, I thought you knew birds? If you had just taken the fish maybe he would have left you alone.

 

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To Robert,

 

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What about getting an FD tele and an FD to EOS adaptor? It seems that these lenses are used wide open most of the time anyway so having a pre-set lens wouldn't really be that much of a loss. Used FD lenses are also going very cheaply these days.

[don_baccus]

If I'd taken the fish, I might've been raped! :)

[jeff_hallett]

gentlemen,

 

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none of my published shots are of birds. as someone mentioned, most

 

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of the stock companies and nature mags. are saturated with bird

 

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images. however, if i am going to shoot raptors and some approach-

 

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able songbirds or mammals, i usually stalk, slowly carrying my

 

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very light sigma 400 5.6 close focus and not feel like i have

 

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carried my cross to the hill so to speak. if the light is low my

 

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430ex flash and fresnel setup goes through the brush quite

 

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easily. maybe i,ll start lifting weights so i can lug a 600/4

 

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through the swamps when they ever become affordable for me.

 

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jeff

[don_atzberger]

I have to underscore what Don Baccus said. Go for the longer glass even if you have to go used manual focus. I have a Tamron 400mm f/4 and it's just at the minimum for birding. It's got the two matched teleconverters with it and both do an outstanding job. Thus I can get a 560mm f/5.6 or an 800mm f/8 of very good quality, and if I stack the two converters, an 1100mm f/11 of relatively okay quality. The dual-converter setup requires that EVERYTHING be done right to produce anything better than mediocre results.

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After getting some low-contrast, drab-color results with Sigma, I really don't blame you for not wanting to go 3rd party. However, should you come across a decent deal on the Tamron 400/4, it's an unusually good lens for the money (I paid $1500 for mine with the two converters). I use this lens with both the F3 and the FE2 with outstanding results. This is an adaptall lens, so you can use it with an FM, N6006, F, Nikkormat, Pentax bodies, Minolta (even Maxxum) bodies or Canon FD-mount bodies -- whatever suits your tastes. All you have to do is get the mounting ring for the camera you want to use. As far as I know, there's no adaptall mount for EOS cameras :^\

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If I remember correctly (Canon experts, feel free to jump in here), there's an adapter that allows you to use Nikkor lenses on EOS cameras. I don't know how well this would work or what limitations you'd have, but if it works okay, you might consider using Nikkor manual focus glass on your camera. The Tamron with the Nikon AI adaptall mount would also work with this arrangement. HOWEVER!! Verify this before you act on it as I'm not certain of the details!!!

[cheng_wu]

Well, I have the Tamron MF 300MM f:2.8 (60B)with Konica and Canon EOS mount (yes, there is a Adaptall-2 EOS mount, it came with the Tamron 300 when I bought it used), but I only have the 2X TC, I am quite happy with the results.

 

Cheng Wu, March 20, 2002 at 10:39PM Atlantic Time

[paul_dibiase3]

I have been using the Sigma 400mm f/5.6 APO lens for many years. It's extremely sharp, well built ( I haven't had the problems some owners of earlier Sigmas have had) and focuses down to 4 feet. It makes a great semi-macro lens for flowers, butterflies and other subjects about the size of a walnut. With the limiter switch set, it focuses pretty fast on the N90s. I wish it had HSM, but focusing speed is not really a problem. It's fast enough for wildlife. I had a Tokina 400mm which is smaller and lighter, but I found that I was using the Sigma more often due to its close focusing ability, so I sold the Tokina. Oh, it takes 77mm filters like the 80-200 zoom, and many other "pro" Nikon lenses.