Originally posted by lowcountrybird I have a K5 and typically use a DA 55-300mm lens for my wildlife photography hobby. I'm particularly interested in photographing birds.
Hi... I find refining technique and really knowing your gear more important than acquiring a new piece of kit. In other words, your K-5 paired to the DA 55-300 can produce excellent results, if you shoot to their strengths.
When I was pairing my K-5 to the DA 55-300 for wildlife subjects, my success rate improved significantly by doing the following:
1. On the K-5... ALWAYS shoot RAW (DNG). Next, turn off everything the camera wants to serve up that may slow down it down as it processes an image to save to your SD card (Yes, even turn off SR, lens correction, etc.) Your goal is make it easy for the K-5 to pump as many images to your SD card as possible, in as short a time as possible,
2. Set the K-5 to AF,C with focus priority, continuous shooting set to 'high,'
3. Set the Mode to TAv with a shutter speed not less than 800 and aperture adjusted to get the lowest possible ISO, use 'Natural' color profile with contrast +1 and Extra Fine Sharpen +2,
4. For shutter release, set it at half press of the shutter button,
5. When you ID a subject (even if your view is somewhat obstructed), fire off a string of shots (5-10 is OK), then select the best of the bunch to post-process, once you return home. Consider every shot a throw away and be pleasantly surprised if your keeper rate is better than (say) 20% (be aggressive when you cull... only work on the best images),
6. Become a wizard at post-processing... Get a copy of LR5.3 (if you do not have it already) and devote (say) six months to learning everything you can about noise reduction, dynamic range enhancement, fine sharpening, cropping for composition, etc... be quick. I use LR5.3, plus NIK add-ins and have a work-flow that usually takes 3, but not more than 5 minutes to complete.
Anyway, it worked for me... you might need to fine tune your gear a little, but these settings should get you started and provide a solid base that you can adapt to better fit your style.
Cheers... M