Help needed, birding with a D5000.

Kerry Pierce wrote:

Birding can be a very expensive hobby. Eventually, you will want an expensive tripod with an expensive head and expensive lenses to put on them.

Right now, my suggestion would be to use what you have to your best advantage. Learn how to get closer to the birds and how to get the most out of your equipment. I would advise saving your money to buy better equipment down the road, like a used 300 f/4 AF-S. That is a superb lens, much better than almost anything else at the 300mm range. A Sigma 50-500 might work okay too, but it won't have quite the IQ that you can get from the Nikon prime and it's a lot of money as well.

Don't buy another 70-300 type lens. IMO, the differences in the consumer lenses of that type are mostly incremental. I'm not even sure that the Nikon 70-300vr is all that much better than the others, especially compared to what you can get with a lens like the 300 f/4.

good luck

Kerry

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