lens advice for birding

[irishlad]

hi all

have got my budget sorted and have around £400 to buy a replacement for my 70-300mm is

i been looking at

used bigma 50-500mm but these are over budget and hard to come by (hens teeth)

sigma 170-500mm

sigma 135-400mm

and over budget sigma 120-400mm OS

any advice welcomed

[BillyPilgrim]

Lots of people on here get fantastic results with the 'bigma' so I'd go for that if I were you.

I just checked the completed listings on Ebay and found a few that had sold for £400 or less and a few more that went for not much over. One went for £318 - bargain!

You just need to be patient (difficult I know when new toys are involved) and one will come along within your budget.

Good luck!

[Badllarma]

irishlad how about you buying a teleconverter for using with your current lens??

BTW What ever you have it will never be long enough for birds the longer lens you have the further away they seem to be, i'm sure they know

[galanthus]

Originally Posted by Badllarma

irishlad how about you buying a teleconverter for using with your current lens??

BTW What ever you have it will never be long enough for birds the longer lens you have the further away they seem to be, i'm sure they know

I looked into a converter for the same lens, however, means much slower performance that even IS can't compensate for.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by galanthus

I looked into a converter for the same lens, however, means much slower performance that even IS can't compensate for.

and almost certainly loss of AF in all but the brightest conditions. TCs are useful on fast lenses but not the greatest solution when added to an f5.6 lens.

Irish lad:

Ive had a little bigma 170-500 for three years and it does okay - it has a slightly noisy focus , and slight image fringing if used on a full frame sensor (cropped sensors cant see the edge of the lens but shoot through the central sweet spot), but appart from that its a good budget alternative - check out my Gallery for examples - virtually all the long lens work on their is with this lens.

The 135-400 is also an okay budget model , but of course is 100mm shorter then little bigma , and not that much less expensive.

another lens you might like to consider is the tamron 200-500 , ive not used it myself but have heard good things about it (its over your budget too , but not as much as a bigma)

I'd be inclined to stay away from the cosina/vivitar 100-400 despite it being much cheaper as both the image quality and build quality is shockingly bad.

[irishlad]

thanks for the replies, have decided to keep my budget and save upsome more for the canon 100-400mm is or a bigma with a new body maybe, thank you all for your advice

kev

[stephen p]

Originally Posted by irishlad

thanks for the replies, have decided to keep my budget and save upsome more for the canon 100-400mm is or a bigma with a new body maybe, thank you all for your advice

kev

I was going to say, save up a bit more and get the lens you will be happy with.

You would be kicking yourself if you spent the money on a lens and it doesnt perform.
The Sigma 120-400 OS is getting some great reviews and even though im a Nikon user, we all know the 100-400 pump is a great lens.

Steve

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by irishlad

thanks for the replies, have decided to keep my budget and save upsome more for the canon 100-400mm is or a bigma with a new body maybe, thank you all for your advice

kev

sounds like a wise plan - there is also the sigma 150-500 OS to consider, this doesnt have ex glass but apart from that is reputed to be good and is cheaper than the pump.

i'd definitely spend the majority of your money on glass rather than bodies tho as a cheap(ish) body with good glass will out perform an expensive body with cheap glass on the front.