To buy or not to buy this big glass, that is the question? The consideration is not just the cost, but a series of operational issue to think through. It is rated at 11.2 lbs :shock:, not counting the gimbo head and carbon fibre tripod to go with it. One becomes a dedicated Bird photographer while totally giving up birding whenever carrying this outfit.
Absolutely right! Up to the 400/5.6 class, you're putting a lens on the camera. Beyond that, you're hanging a camera on the lens. Everything is centered around the lens. And it doesn't stop at gimbal head and tripod either. If you get into it deep enough, you'll eventually want to do fill flash. For that, you also need a flash bracket system that works with your gimbal head. Now tripods don't go very low, so to get the kind of shore bird shots that has water merged into the sky, you need a ground pot (and be crawling around in the mud). And for the occasions that you need mobility, you'd want a monpod as well (also carbon fiber of course
). And since gimbal heads don't work very well on monopods, you'll need something like the RRS heavy duty tilt head. Flash attachment to this latter might be very different from your gimbal head. So make sure your flash bracket system can handle that. And finally, it's highly unlikely that your currently backpack is large enough for a lens like that. So you'll need a backpack that can handle the combos above, plus extension tubes, TCs etc.
Check out the minimum focal distance on those, it's often is the 15ft plus range, which means a close warbler will actually be too close. Even the 10ft MFD of the Canon 400/5.6 is too much at times.
Actually, the Canon EOS lens chart says 400/5.6, 500/4 and 600/4 without extension tube all have the same maximum magnification of 0.12. So it really shouldn't matter if the MFD is 11, 15 or 18 ft. As for working with extension tubes, with a 600 you'll likely be working within a very specific zone as oppose to chasing things around. Extension tubes on a long lens provides a rather large focus range anyway. So it's likely that one tube configuration would be enough to cover most of your individual situations.
A "best-kept secret" in the Nikkor lens line-up is the 200-400mm f4 AFS VRII as one of the sharpest zoom lens produced by Nikon. With the advent of DX format sensor with the 1.5x crop advantage in the telephoto application, it offers the balance between the magnification of 600mm equiv and a variable focal length at a reasonable price. [...]
Don't know about that... You can apply the same logic and put a 1.5x camera behind the 600mm and get 900mm equivalent. Everything else being equal, I'll take a "900" over "600" any day. And I would expect the 200-400 to deteriorate with TC much quicker than a fixed 600. In my mind, the 200-400 is probably for people who need flexibility more than reach. They are dealing with subjects are relatively large and need below 400 and close up quite often. On the other hand, 600 is for those who deal with small subjects and must have maximum reach at all cost. Totally different mindsets really...
Andy
