[Subrat Seet]

GD Sir
Fantastic captures. Liked the first picture. Why the purple swamphen & spot bill duck pictures not so sharp? Could have been superb.

Honestly, i liked spot bill ducks, so this honest comments.

Regards
Subrat

[gd1418]

The moorhens were across a vast body of water and way out of the lens's range.

Without the TC the results are quite good though I did not take any pictures here without the TC. I did not miss the VR. Actually none of my lenses are with VR.

Very true that for the price of the Nikon glass & the TC I could've got the Sigma 150-500, but then you can't be comparing a Nikon glass with that of Sigma.

Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 VRII is a drool. Can trade a kidney for this, but settled for a f/4D. Gulp...

The amount of patience required to shoot a bird lacks in me. I just tried this for the heck of it. I basically love to shoot big game and am generally more comfortable doing this.

Originally Posted by airguitar

That's some nice equipment that you acquired GD! How far were you from the purple moorhens ?

Questions :

1. How are the results without the TC ?
1a. Do you miss VR on this lens a lot ? Probably not.
2. At the price you must have got 300 f/4 and the tc14e 2, you would have probably got the 150-500mm sigma. Did you do a comparison ( I haven't )?

I have a 70-300 mm and cannot afford anything more than that right now. Some day when I can afford it, I'll go for the 300 f/2.8 VR.


"I'm not an avid bird-watcher and find it quite difficult to photograph them. Seeing some awesome works of known friends in photographing the bird, further depresses me." is what many go through ( I'm still going through that )

My 2 paise :

When you start off bird photography, whatever equipment you have, it'll always seem less. That's the other reason why I have stuck to my 70-300 : I will not go for another one until I consistently get good ones with the lens I have - getting close to them birds is the key. Folks getting full frame closeputs of birds are plain lucky. Many bird photographs are always cropped.

Another key tip is : shoot a lot, but post only the very best ones

sorry for the

Thanks Subrat. I explained the reason for OOF shots in one of my previous posts.

Originally Posted by Subrat Seet

GD Sir
Fantastic captures. Liked the first picture. Why the purple swamphen & spot bill duck pictures not so sharp? Could have been superb.

Honestly, i liked spot bill ducks, so this honest comments.

Regards
Subrat

[SPARKled]

Originally Posted by gd1418

Thank you C300. TC does not result in OOF pictures. It was very windy and the surface was quite uneven. Tripod was of WWII vintage and could barely manage to take the weight of the 300mm (1.3 Kg). I could see the wind slightly shake the lens. I took photographs on timer to minimise shake, but couldn't control the wind.

As I found out, it requires a lot of patience and walking. Birds are a nervous lot. You've to sit it out almost akin to fishing.

Like I said earlier, the photos have come good and the biggest limiting factor that I could see is reach. However the lens that you are using i.e. the 300 f4 AFS is one of the most difficult ones to shoot and I speak from experience as I have the same lens. There is no doubting its sharpness and ability to take TCs well, but you have to consistently shoot at 1/300 shutter speed atleast and the tripod collar is one of the weak points. There are a lot of articles on the internet about this and one good thing you can do to improve the sharpness of your tripod shots is to change the tripod collar.

This is the one I have

Kirk Enterprises : Lens Collar for 300mm f4 AFS

I have upgraded to a Kirk replacement foot and my number of keepers has gone up by a huge amount. Not to mention that I have a pretty decent carbonfibre tripod and monopod set up. If your tripod is not up to the mark, it better to shoot handheld than rely on a wobbly support support system. There are many Gitzo knockoffs that do a very decent job and at a pretty decent price. You could get a nice one at a good price form Feisol or Benro.