Originally posted by normhead I was shooting next to a Nikon shooter with one yesterday. He had a 1.4 on it too. Imagine 840 ƒ5.6. I was shooting 420 ƒ4. I was at a distinct disadvantage in this particular situation. He was also really quick picking out the birds, he was taking a couple shots then stopping to point out for me where they were, nice guy. When you're shooting at a site with big feeders and you are interested in 4 birds out of hundreds, that's an important skill,
Yeah, I took some shots last year with a D810 and 600mm f4. Just pressed the button, the guy had already set it up pointing at a Tawny Frogmouth nest in the car park. For the rest of the walk, he plodded behind us with all that on a tripod over his shoulder. I had a K-S2, 300mm f4.5 and 1.4TC.
The cost, the weight, the inconvenience - that gentleman thought it was all worth it for the picture quality.
I think we're going to see even less of these things in the future. The magazines that employed staffers to take sports or wildlife pics have gone broke, newspapers and websites won't commission freelancers but instead buy photos for a piece from agencies like Reuters or stock.
Some people did pay $15,000 for a lens if they thought they'd get it back in jobs or photo sales, it isn't true anymore.
Any of us who are thinking of quitting our day jobs and becoming long lens togs really need to reconsider.