BIF with M6 Mark II lenses choice (on a budget)

Hello fellow M user

I just bought a M6 II camera and I want to get back to Bird in Fly.

I actually have 2 "long" lens a Canon EF 200mm Macro and the old Canon EF 100-300 .

I whish to get one fast lens.

In the past I had a 5DII with the Canon 500 F4, but I sold them during  a bad live episode.

I miss the quality of the 500 F4, but I didn't regret its weight.

Hello...

DenisBBergeron wrote:

Hello fellow M user

I just bought a M6 II camera and I want to get back to Bird in Fly.

Nice

I actually have 2 "long" lens a Canon EF 200mm Macro and the old Canon EF 100-300 .

I whish to get one fast lens.

In the past I had a 5DII with the Canon 500 F4, but I sold them during a bad live episode.

I miss the quality of the 500 F4, but I didn't regret its weight.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures. 

I don't have a lot of experience with BIF, but I have spent some time with my M6ii experimenting with it, with good results. I found that the camera does a pretty good job tracking, the best of course with an empty sky behind! The 14 fps shooting mode is fantastic for this.

I've only used the Canon EF-S 55-250 IS STM. It has had enough reach for me since I have so far tried mostly coastal birds in Florida, and I can get relatively close to them. I also have a 1.5x teleconverter that will work with this lens, this gets me to about 350mm at a darker than preferred, but still usable, f8.

The lenses you already have should allow you to do some practicing, to become familiar with doing this with the M6ii, I'd suggest going in the field and doing some shooting before deciding what lens you might want to purchase next.

You'll be likely shooting at higher ISOs that your preferred 'fast' lens choices, but processing those photos might be a good experience for you to see 'how much faster' and/or longer a lens you would prefer.

There are many threads about BIF photography, technique, and Canon lens choices. Some are in this forum, and there are quite a few in the 'Canon EOS 7D / 10D - 90D Talk' forum as well, I'd suggest searching for BIF and reading through some of those threads.

A fast lens on a budget - that would be a dream come true. You mentioned 500 f4 was too heavy for you then you need a zoom lens or a 300-400 primes. 300 f4 or 400 5.6 are budget options I guess. 400 f4 is even better but more expensive. Or you can use a zoom lens like 100-400 from Canon or a budget option Sigma. I personally use Sigma 100-400 with my M6 Mark ii and I'm quite happy with it. It's not the fastest lens (f6.3 at 400mmm) but it's sharp and af is fast.