Long focal lengths

[wellinghall]

<p>I have an E-420 with a 70-300mm f/4 - 5.6 Olympus lens, but even this isn't long enough for my bird photography. I have, at the very most, £500 to spend. What is my best option, out of:</p>

<ul>

<li>500mm f/8 mirror lens, plus adaptor</li>

<li>OM series 400mm or 500mm telephoto lens, plus adaptor - I reckon I can just about do this on my budget</li>

<li>teleconverter - will this still give acceptable image quality</li>

<li>something else I haven't thought of</li>

<li>give up - there's no way I can get what I'm after at this price band.</li>

</ul>

<p>All advice gratefully accepted!<br>

Thanks<br>

Andrew</p>

[SCL]

<p>If you go to the learning tab above and click on nature, you'll get a sense of what other photographers consider appropriate for lots of bird photography. I've generally gotten along with a 400 or 500mm lens for birds, at reasonably close distances, but often wished for a 600....just wouldn't use it enough.</p>

[jason_hopper]

<p>In the price range you're working with, I've tried a 500mm cat lens and found images flat and soft. Teleconverters are a waste. Modern telephotos are probably out of your price range. For my 4/3's, the first legacy lens I picked up was this 1970 Vivitar 500mm/f6.3-f32 preset T-mount, gives 1000mm effective focal length for $125.</p>

<p>The image was taken this morning in a howling ice storm, no birds and some wind movement. At f6.3 DoF is a little shallow.</p><div></div>

[jason_hopper]

<p>And because can't load two pictures at once, this morning's image</p><div></div>

[john_robison3]

<p>Those 500mm f8 'T' mount refractors available on the big auction site for about $120 would be better than a cheap mirror lens. Sometimes you can find a used one cheaper than that. Haven't used a 2X that was very good. With that 500 f8 you would have a 1000mm f16, too slow really. One bad thing about the cheap 500mm lenses is the close focus is too far to get a good image of a small bird. A lot of them don't focus closer than 25 to 35 feet. Mirror lenses focus closer, sometimes as close as 6 feet but contrast sucks unless you buy a good one. The long discontinued Olympus 500mm f8 Zuiko is reported to be quite good and the discontinued Tamron 500mm f8 in interchangeable mount also has a good rep but of course they cost a good bit more.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Andrew: Take a look at <a href="00VUEX">http://www.photo.net/olympus-camera-forum/00VUEX</a> where 70-300 is discussed, particularly the reference there to <a href="http://www.pbase.com/pipkin/pad">http://www.pbase.com/pipkin/pad</a> . I'm thinking that we always want more reach. Yet seeing great bird shots with the 70-300 makes me think it may be enough, depending...</p>

[profhlynnjones]

<p>Hi Andrew,</p>

<p>Distance is the enemy! Regardless of the quallity of the optic, you have 500 to 1,000 feet over a golf course provided it has not been mowed for a day or two. Over water 50 to 150 feet depending on the humidity and the warmth of the water, over highways especially black top, no distance is safe. I was the former VP of Celestron where I used incredible Schmidt optics but there were two problems, first: vibration, second: distance. I did a great deal of testing on these situations. The problem most people have with TeleX is that they use them as "telephotos" at great distance, there will always be softness in these conditions. </p>

<p>I teach CU-Macro in college among several other classes. One of my favorites is a tele-extender because I'm only shooting from a few inches to a few feet. There is some loss even with an excellent TeleX, these include some amount of chromatic aberration, coma, and reduction of resolution. However with short distances, the visual resolution will exceed the maximum resolution of the camera. </p>

<p>Also, I was recently in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks shooting with my Olympus digital E500, 8MP (my E510 was in the shop), my 14-45 and my 40-150, ext. tube, 2X teleX, +diopters, filters, etc. In order to shoot birds, critters, and caymen, I mostly shot with zoom 150 and 2x teleX. My prints are needle sharp cropped down to 13"X19" but the distance did not exceed around 25 feet. When I was shooting with these inch long toxic frogs I was shooting with plus diopters and flash, the critter's enlarged size was about 14". </p>

<p>I also shoot with a 500mm mirror and a 1000mm MTO mirror as well as 600mm and 800mm refractors, the only problem is distance. </p>

<p>Lynn</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>Lynn Jones has a good point. Yesterday your post got me curious so I hooked up my 200mm f5 Zuiko with a Tamron F 2X for a 400mm f10 on my E-410. Mounted on a old, heavy Gitzo with a focusing rail to balance the combo I turned on live view and selected 10X to check focusing. Good grief! The image was wavering all over the place and the target was about 1300 feet away. This was at late afternoon with sunset one hour away and over a mix of trees, lawn and buildings. Of course none would photograph birds at a quarter mile. I have tried my hand at photographing Crows by attracting them with a handout of Cheeros. The little beggars get quite bold and I seldom have to resort to more than a 135mm f3.5 OM Zuiko on the E-410 but those black feathers play havoc with exposure, kinda hard to get detail without blowing out the background.</p>

[jim_baker6]

<p>Yes, I'd agree with the last two contributions. With telephotos camera vibration is likely to limit the image quality, particularly at long subject distances. I use OM film cameras and my telephoto lenses are Zuiko 135, 200 and 300mm prime lenses. Particularly with the last two, you have to keep the shutter speed faster than 1/250th, even with mirror and aperture prefire (and the tripod has to be rock steady) if vibration is not to limit the image quality. Subject distance and the environment (wind, air clarity) are siginficant factors. Incidentally, I had a Zuiko 1.4 tele-extender (which is matched to the 300mm f4.5)) and found the (420mm) image to be identical to the same cropped 300mm image. Maybe there was a bit more vignetting in the 420mm image but the image quality was the same. So I just use the 300mm and crop if I need to. </p>

[wellinghall]

<p>Thank you very much for your comments, everyone.</p>

[yoshio]

<p>Andrew</p>

<p>it is interesting to see how many people obsess over getting reach from their lenses. Interestingly the best bird photographers seldom do. For the reasons which Lynn Jones oulined Instead better results come from investing in time and patience. I use a 300mm f4 lens and try to get closer</p>

<p><a title="classicPose by aquinas_56, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4130/5193695455_b3d33b386a.jpg" alt="classicPose" width="375" height="500" /></a></p>

<p>The above image is uncropped, just as it came from the camera</p>

[ken_max__parks]

<p>Andrew,</p>

<p>I've had some experience in Avian Photography. And I have shot with both the Olympus E-30 and the Canon EOS 7D. Both are excellent cameras. However, I found that I had to crop and enlarge some of the images by a crop factor of 20%. One has to be careful with noise and Image Quality, which can be rectified with post-production software.</p>

<p>The Olympus E-30 was shot with the 70-300mm, equivalent to 140-600mm. For the most part, this should allow for good to excellent bird photography.</p>

<p>The Canon 7D was used with a 18-270mm or equivalent to about 29 to 432mm (35mm film equivalent). This camera has better IQ than that of any Olympus E-series DSLR including the most recent E-5.</p>

<p>Avian Photography takes a great deal of patience and practice. Also, reading up on how to shoot birds will bring that 70-300mm lens closer to your subject.</p>

<p>I also use an OM adapted lens from my legacy days, the Vivitar 120-600mm lens. Yes, it's manual focus, but it provides great detail, albeit slightly flat. This can be easily corrected in Photoshop CS5 and NIK software. </p>

<p>The Vivitar lens can be found on eBay for about $200.00 (USD) or less. An adapter at the same sight would go for about $40 for your E-420 camera. You will need to steady this lens on a tripod or monopod because it will give you the equivalent of 240-1,200 mm (35mm focal length).</p>

<p>I would recommend staying away from the Tele-X converters; they seem to amplify any defects of your telephoto lens, including chromatic aberration and other add-on distortions.<br>

<img src="http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/8/2/8/event_18966184.jpeg" alt="" width="360" height="279" /><br>

Morning Migration - Canon EOS 7D, Tamron 18-270mm (actual 432mm, 135 format) f/14, 1/1328 sec., ISO 400</p>

<p>Good luck in your choice.<br /></p>

[wellinghall]

<p>Yoshio, Ken, many thanks for your advice.</p>