Birds of Prey in Flight with R5 and RF 100-500

David Franklin wrote:

Very nice pictures. I note that only one of them was taken at focal lengths greater than about 185 mm, and that one only a little past 200mm. Therefore, I'm wondering how well, or actually how much better, these would have looked if they had been shot wide open, at f/2.8, on an RF 70-200 f/2.8 zoom instead. Certainly the bokeh would be potentially better with "blurrier" backgrounds, plus a lot smaller and lighter lens to carry around. If most of your shooting is done at these shorter than 200mm focal lengths, I'd advise that you should add that 70-200 lens to your bag or sell the 100-500 and buy the 70-200.

Of course, YMMV.

We're all different, and that is perfectly fine.  For my part, I have been contemplating getting a 70-200 occasionally but, time and time again, came to the conclusion that I have absolutely no use for it.

On this particular day, I shot just under 2,500 images, 62 of which I declared keepers (I prefer to keep the bar pretty high).  Since I happened to have my Nikon D850 with the 500mm PF along for the event, that one pretty much got all 500mm shots of the day.  The remainder was spread between 145 and about 400mm.  Not ideal with a 70-200.

The reason the BIF shots were taken at rather short FLs is simply that the birds' flight paths were unpredictable, so I went fairly wide in order to keep the birds in the frame, preferring to crop as necessary afterwards.

Nope, I'm not going to give up the 100-500.  Being limited at 200mm is almost useless when you shoot birds.