My 70-200mm f2.8 is my preferred lens for any birding shots. But it is very heavy. Sometimes I go out open to the possibility of BIF shots, but too pessimistic about my chances of finding any to be willing to carry it and maybe not find anything to shoot. Sometimes I am out with whatever lenses I happen to have, and a bird turns out. These images are taken with 3 alternative lenses, the 55-300mm, the 200mm f4 AI, and the native 30-110. For these lenses, it is perhaps time to rehabilitate the Samuel Johnson quote, to say that BIF shots with them may not be done well, but the surprise is that they are done at all.
My preferred lens when BIF is in the offing, but I am too lazy to carry the 70-200mm, is the 55-300mm. Initially I thought this was a waste of time for BIF, but experience using it for that purpose on my D7000 persuaded me to give it another chance on the V1. The main things I had learned using it on the D7000 was the patience to wait till the focus indicator turned green (the 70-200mm is more a point and shoot lens
) and to turn VR off. For BIF you need shutter speeds too high for VR to work, but I had initially thought it would help me stabilise the VF to help me keep the AF box on the bird till it turned green. But I learned that although it does stabilise the VF, it slows down AF so much as to make it a net negative. The first three shots below were all taken within a couple of minutes of each other, and all on the last day before I updated the FW to allow AF-C
Don't tell me you're going to eat all that yourself!
Peek a boo!
Fantail
The fantail hunts tiny flying insects, and its ducking, diving, weaving flight in pursuit of them makes it an almost impossible target for BIF. To think of capturing it with the ponderously slow AF of the 55-300mm, it is to laugh. But I went with an industrial strength solution. Noticing a fantail that kept returning to the area just above a certain tree, which was obviously a concentration of its target insects (even though I could not see them), I focused on a subject that I estimated to be the same distance as that airspace, locked the focus by switching the lens to MF, and then when the fantail next returned to the area, blazed away at 5 fps without trying to follow it's flight. Then I just had to discard the 90% of images that had no bird in them, and also those where it was badly out of focus, leaving me with 2 or 3 acceptable shots.
Gannet sees something it likes
Look out behind you!
When I am planning to shoot just birds buried in foliage, making AF impossible, my preferred lens is my 200mm f4 AI. But sometimes I am out with that lens, and flying birds turn up, so I have to make do.
A flock of Little Black Shags (a species of cormorant) the last thing you want to see when out with an MF lens
Sparrows like kowhai too
Gannet taking off
Gannet fly-by
The native 30-110 is really too short for BIF, unless you plan really carefully, or just look for large birds relatively unafraid of people - gulls and skuas are ideal
Skua
Gull
--
Apteryx
My preferred lens when BIF is in the offing, but I am too lazy to carry the 70-200mm, is the 55-300mm. Initially I thought this was a waste of time for BIF, but experience using it for that purpose on my D7000 persuaded me to give it another chance on the V1. The main things I had learned using it on the D7000 was the patience to wait till the focus indicator turned green (the 70-200mm is more a point and shoot lens
) and to turn VR off. For BIF you need shutter speeds too high for VR to work, but I had initially thought it would help me stabilise the VF to help me keep the AF box on the bird till it turned green. But I learned that although it does stabilise the VF, it slows down AF so much as to make it a net negative. The first three shots below were all taken within a couple of minutes of each other, and all on the last day before I updated the FW to allow AF-CDon't tell me you're going to eat all that yourself!
Peek a boo!
Fantail
The fantail hunts tiny flying insects, and its ducking, diving, weaving flight in pursuit of them makes it an almost impossible target for BIF. To think of capturing it with the ponderously slow AF of the 55-300mm, it is to laugh. But I went with an industrial strength solution. Noticing a fantail that kept returning to the area just above a certain tree, which was obviously a concentration of its target insects (even though I could not see them), I focused on a subject that I estimated to be the same distance as that airspace, locked the focus by switching the lens to MF, and then when the fantail next returned to the area, blazed away at 5 fps without trying to follow it's flight. Then I just had to discard the 90% of images that had no bird in them, and also those where it was badly out of focus, leaving me with 2 or 3 acceptable shots.
Gannet sees something it likes
Look out behind you!
When I am planning to shoot just birds buried in foliage, making AF impossible, my preferred lens is my 200mm f4 AI. But sometimes I am out with that lens, and flying birds turn up, so I have to make do.
A flock of Little Black Shags (a species of cormorant) the last thing you want to see when out with an MF lens
Sparrows like kowhai too
Gannet taking off
Gannet fly-by
The native 30-110 is really too short for BIF, unless you plan really carefully, or just look for large birds relatively unafraid of people - gulls and skuas are ideal
Skua
Gull
--
Apteryx
