afternoon all

[basilyoung]

I am a new member,
and what brought me here was my new camara...Nikon D40X...got the standard lense, and a Tamron 55/200 lense

I am based in North East Wales (10 miles west of Chester) and would like to get into wild life photography, (many years ago, I was into bird spotting), the bottom line is, it appears that the lenses I have, are not really up to the mark, and would like to take good quality piccys

so, are there any local clubs, and also, which lenses are recomended for photgraphing Birds, and for that matter, any other advice, would be very welcome


thanks in advance

basil

[Pete W]

Basil
Welcome to the site. cheapest option may be to get a 2x converter for your 55/200. A good lens but weighty is the sigma 50-500...

What sort of budget are you looking at.......

[basilyoung]

Thanks for your recomendations Pete

I should have thought of that one myself,

as far as budget goes, at the moment its pretty limited, due to redundancy, but expect that to change soon....hopefully

and once working, my budget situation with rapidly change....but a X2 converter should be easy to fund

thanks again

baz

[eeyore]

... although the af may not function in all but the brightest light as you will have essentially created an f11 lens

two cheap(ish) options are the sigma 135-400 which is about 300 notes and sigma 170-500 (little bigma) with is around 400. neither is the best lens in the world but my litlle bigma has done sterling service for the last two years and for its price point you cant really knock it.

[basilyoung]

Again thank you

as it happens, I have "hit the brakes", as I too realized, that I would be up-ping the the F stops by about 2, and on a long zoom lense, on unpredictible subjects, like birds, I would have to up the "asa" settings, so, I will wait until I can afford a more suitable lense,

basil

[eeyore]

course you could look arround for second hand lenses like this one Preloved | nikon lense for sale in Middlesbrough, Cleveland, UK which are more affordable - however check that the lens you are buying is dslr compatible as some older lenses - particlularly those from sigma, are not.

[gary gas]

I had the 170 500mm and it is a good lens but suffers from no zoom lock which makes it a pain to carry around.

[basilyoung]

Again, thank you for you surgestions,

Buying a secondhand lense seems like a good option, and think, I need to research lenses in the high Zoon range, and fixed lenses possibly as well, as it is, I can,t splash the cash, just yet, so research/search ...so at least I am then "clued" up

and till then, the 200mm and sitting a distance from the target,(I leave bird seed out in a quite location) and over the course of a few hours....move closer.....gets fairly good results, all be it...very cropped piccys, (and over blown....ie save piccys @ 300% true size) but it does help develop my technike

baz

[eeyore]

you might find this guy interesting Brian Small Photo: Article: Through the Looking Glass he amercican but leaving that aside he has some useful advice on photographing birds with all sorts of lenses.

the key thing is to play to your strengths - if you only have 55- 200mm rather than concentrating on long range full frame shots look at things that that focal distance is best for such as flocks of birds , birds in their environment, starling roosts etc plus if you get a long remote cord or IR remote then you might be able to get full frame images at a feeding station in your garden by setting the camera on a tripod (possibly in a home made "blimp" to deaden noise) relatively close to the feeders then tripping the shutter remotely from a hide (or house) further away

like clint eastwood used to say - "you improvise , adapt and overcome"

[basilyoung]

Location: Chilterns...I see you are from my neck of the woods...well until I moved to North Wales

and again, thats a perfect solution, for now, and in the future, as in, by the time, I have the resourses to get the lense I need, It will be next year, before I am "tooled up", and where, I live, we do get Blue Tits, and the odd Green Finche along with the usual suspects in the garden

and locally, I have seen Yellow Wagtails, as well as a yet an undefined large bird of prey (and I do mean large as well)

baz