Originally posted by Kameko Like everyone else who's ever posted one of these threads, my reasons are "different" (sarcasm) from everyone else who's posted the same. In all seriousness I'm very much on the fence about whether I should stay with my current setup, or sell it and invest in a different system.
I've found my niche in wildlife (bird nerd) photography. A lot different from the street photography that I started off doing. I'm looking at my current lenses and find myself getting frustrated with the lack of reach. What I have for wildlife is my K-3, the FA* 400mm and the DA* 60-250 which sits unused nowadays. What I want is 600mm at f2.8 or f4 so I'm able to use a 1.4x or 2x TC. When I had the Pentax 1.4 TC with my 400, it was difficult shooting birds hiding under the shadows of trees at f8.
I've invested a bit of $ in my current system, that being the 14mm, FA 31mm, F50 1.7, DA* 60-250mm, FA* 400mm, 540 flash, K-3 Limited w/grip. I realize to sell it off and reinvest in Canikon I'd only be able to afford bare bones right now. However, I'd be able to walk into any camera shop and pick up whatever lens it is I want. On the flip side, if I could find a clean copy of the F or FA 600 f4 when finances permit, I MAY be happy enough with my set-up. Or in a years time I may decide that 600 isn't long for me. Thoughts?
Birds range from really tiny 10-20g creatures to Black Eagles and Flamingos and Albatrosses and so on.
With the big ones the problem is not the too short focal length but rather their location - they might be a few thousand kilometers away from where we usually shoot birds such that photographing them takes effort and money to plan a trip and carry the lenses and such. There is not much to do about.
For the tiny ones the approach is a bit different: although they do seem really tiny such that you feel that you need an extra 100-200mm focal length, I think what you would better try to do is learn about their behavior first, where they breed, where they perch, where it's most likely to find them and than wait for them patiently in a blind. A 200-300mm lens will suffice than. If you are not that kind of a person to try to lure them and wait for them then yes - you need a 600mm + 1.4 TC and just take snapshots as you go along. But this combo will most likely be a burden to you in 1-2 hrs walk.
I should mention that I did not wait for them in a blind yet but I have seen some great results on the web from people who do it. I did meticulously placed my feeder at home though to get nice background. This is another advantage - you can control the environment, such as having a higher shooting point so that you don't get sky between branches in the background etc.
Here's an example of what it came out for me.