@limvo05 wrote:Is 420 FC length sufficient for bird photography? I am using Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS ii with Canon 2x iii converter and I feel 400mm is not long enough.
It isn't. You want at least 600mm. The shot below was with a 1D Mark IV which has a 1.3 crop factor, a Sigma 150-600mm @600mm, with a 1.4x teleconverter. the distance to the bird might be about 20 feet. It was shot out of the window overlooking my 2FL outdoor deck. The photo is not cropped at all.
I agreed with what being said here. It's really called for the situation. Since I am still searching for the right lens for my bird photography fix, I've gone and bought a canvas that would allow me to get as close to the birds without alarming them of my presence. As you can in the photo below, it was taken at ISO 400 400FC F5.6 1/200sec and I was approximately 3 to 4 feet from the birdbath. The photo is a full-size screenshot of the actual.
One of the first things I learned for shooting sports was position is everything and although I am VERY new to taking bird photos the same applies. Ernie, which did you "shoot" first, bird or sports?
I quickly learned that bird photos take a lot of patience, sort of like fishing on a quiet pond or stream because you will often spend long periods of time waiting but you had also better be ready to act as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
I put up some bird feeders and a bird bath two weeks ago and not only do these provide an opportunity for you to set up in a good position they also encourage the birds to hang around nearby so you can get photos of them in more natural locations. They also get used to you from feeding and some are quite inquisitive. I spent an hour last weekend without success trying to get a good photo of a barn swallow in flight but while I was making that attempt the young male cardinal in these photos landed on the ground so close to me that he was far too close for the lens to focus. And sometimes birds get a little too close, Sunday a large buzzard was hovering far too close during the last mile of my 8 mile run and that was definitely creepy. Apparently there is not enough roadkill with the reduced activity due to pandemic so he was trying to drum up a little business.
You can get away with a lot of cropping with a good DSLR if the base image is sharp and taken at a reasonable ISO. I have four of the medium to long Canon primes (200, 300, 400, and 800) and although the 2X fills more of the sensor I think the end result of more heavily cropping with a 1.4X is probably going to provide about the same final quality as shooting with the 2X and often better.
Here are some examples from an EF 800 so the subject will cover about twice the sensor area of the 400. They are not cropped but are down sampled in pixel count to fit forum posting size limits. These were shot from around 30-40 feet away and I probably could have gotten a little closer but the gazebo is a perfect spot for photography without disturbing the subjects. I think that any of these could have been shot with a 400mm lens that provides good IQ and resulted in good images. The final image is a severe crop using only 6% of the sensor area of the 1DX III, it was shot at ISO 800. With a decent lens and reasonable lighting/exposure triangle severe cropping is possible.
Rodger
