Wildlife photography on a budget

[Dan Fromm]

Originally Posted by Satinsnow

As a person that has taken wildlife photography for a number of years, I would never recommend a beginner start out with a mirror, they, because they are so light, lead to very bad technique, besides lacking in the quality department, if I were to ever use another mirror it would be a version of them that is called the "Solid Cat" mirror lens, then you get away with out the problems associated with a normal mirror lens, but that said, the 500mm f/8 presets are a far better choice, and often times I see the old 800mm f/8 lenses on ebay that go for very reasonable prices, I picked one up for $250 and it is actually very good quality, but you have to use stop down metering and if you don't have a good tripod, forget it, just won't work.

Dave

Dave, don't forget the Questar 700/8. Four (4) pounds, large, sharp, focuses to 1:4, unfortunately not cheap. And like all long lenses it punishes the least unsteadiness severely.

Cheers,

Dan

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've owned a couple of mirror lenses, which I sold when I could afford the FD 600/4.5. The biggest problems they had were low contrast relative to a refracting lens and double-line bokeh in situations that are pretty common in bird photography--water bird wading in reeds, bird in a tree surrounded by branches. A light 500mm lens is attractive for flight shots against a blue sky (bad bokeh not being an issue), but f:8 is on the slow side for that purpose.

[Dan Fromm]

David, t/11, which is what the Q700 really does, is slower still.

[donbga]

Originally Posted by David A. Goldfarb

I've owned a couple of mirror lenses, which I sold when I could afford the FD 600/4.5. The biggest problems they had were low contrast relative to a refracting lens and double-line bokeh in situations that are pretty common in bird photography--water bird wading in reeds, bird in a tree surrounded by branches. A light 500mm lens is attractive for flight shots against a blue sky (bad bokeh not being an issue), but f:8 is on the slow side for that purpose.

I'll add my 2 cents about the Cats. The two that I've used seemed to meter slightly slower than the nominal maximum f stop. Not to mention that shooting wide open allows almost no depth of field. Kodachrome 200 pushed to 400 usually resulted in lower contrast images with these lenses as well as other 400 speed films. Modern emulsions are much better than those I used at the time but you will still be shooting on the razors edge if you want supper fine grained images.

As I said before (actually Dave said it), the Tamron 300 mm maual focus f 2.8 with a high quality 1.4 or 2x tele converter will give you the most bang for your buck if you are working on a tight budget.

Also FWIW, the bar is set so high now (and has been for decades) for nature/wild life imagery that the weekend photographer will be hard pressed to produce or make photographs that rival the best professional work.

But it's still fun trying. Just be mindful of the subject and their environment. I've seen some very obnoxious photohraphers in the field, especially at places like Sanibel Is., FL.

[3Dfan]

If you already have a good spotting scope, it may be possible to use it as a lens. There are many models that can use a T-mount.