I guess right now I am leaning toward 500mm f4 and ID mkII now for
my next equipment upgrade.
Fine gear no doubt, but quite frankly thats a ton of money to be
spending.
Now generally im all in favor of people buying gear like that since
hopefully it translates into more gear on the used market for me,
but you seem like a good guy so I actually want to give you helpful
advice =)
Lets be honest hear, if you have the money to afford it, great, by
all means go for that setup. But the reservation I have is that
ive seen very little of your work, and what I have seen doesnt
shout " look at how this 300D and 100-400L hold me back"
Thats just my honest assessment and I dont mean any offense in it
so hopefully you understand where im coming from.
I simply think at this point, you still have a bit of learning to
gain simply with what you have. You only got a 300D, your first
DSLR recently in fact right ?
Now im all in favor of great gear, pretty much anyone can take a
500 f4 mounted on a gimbal head with a 1D and fire off some shots.
Its basically as simple as put this red mark on the target and hold
down this shutter button.
Its tons of fun as well if you havent played with one by the way.
Always reminds me of a computer video game 1942, where you can use
these anti aircraft guns. You scan the sky and then when you see
a bird, hit that shutter button and the 1d starts to fire like a
machine gun, great stuff.
Back to the point though, thats technically going to produce a
shot of the bird or whatever subject you want, but theres alot of
"artistic" stuff that goes into a great photo as well.
Composition, lighting, DOF , just like any other type of
photography.
Easiest and best example is with portrait photography. You could
buy someone a 1Ds, and $5000 worth of studio lights or you could
give a very talented photographer a g5 and 2 420ex speedlights and
he/she would produce the better photos.
So I think you should try to learn with what you've got for a
while. When your producing great shot after great shot then
definatly upgrade and you should be able to produce even better
shots. You might actually hurt your development as a photographer
if you move up to great $10,000 setup to fast.
I actually know a number of friends with alot nicer jobs than I
have who have bought some top notch gear like that and they are
still poor photographers. They simply cant get past the simply
approach of firing a ton of frames. I try to tell them this and
they tell me "what do you mean, ive got 30 frames of that bird and
they are all in focus" Yes thats true BUT, they are 30 frames of
the bird from behind flying into the direction of the sun making
the bird basically a detailess silloutte save for the a few
markings which are very noisey.
Thats my advice to you, use it well and please dont take offense,
its meant with your best intrest in mind.
Soley the decision is up to you of course
http://www.pbase.com/bigbad
