RF 100-400 IS USM help! - Bird photography question

[reheg]

Hi everyone, long time reader first time poster looking for some help with choosing new gear. I currently use a Nikon l340 bridge camera that I've had for like 10 years, but its on its last legs and keeps freezing on me. Basically I'm looking into replacing it with the Canon R10 and getting the Rf 100-400 IS USM lens and maybe the RF 35mm Macro lens to get me started https://vlc.onl/ .

I photograph mainly butterflies and plants/leaves but I've just got hooked on birding and my l340 goes too blurry.

My question is will the R10/100-400 combo be able to photograph birds at say 10+ meters away (I know it will work for butterflies) or would I be better off getting a superzoom bridge camera?

I don't mind getting the 1.4 RF extender if that makes a big difference.

Thanks in advance!

[p4pictures]

I have the EOS R10 and have used it with the RF 100-400mm lens for birds. Ultimately it's suitability will depend on how close you are and how much of a crop you can make from the image.

This godwit was photographed at a wetland reserve and was much further than 10 meters (30 feet) from the camera. The image is not cropped at all. 

[ebiggs1]

I think I would suggest 10 meters to be the longest distance for good IQ birds. Yeah it possible to shoot farther but as distance increases resolution decreases. Teles are not designed to shoot long distances they are for filling the frame with the subject. Now of course that does depend on the subject. A butterfly is different than an elephant. Any way best to keep distance reasonable.

It could be part of the blurry photos you noticed on your current camera.

[johnrmoyer]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

I think I would suggest 10 meters to be the longest distance for good IQ birds. Yeah it possible to shoot farther but as distance increases resolution decreases. Teles are not designed to shoot long distances they are for filling the frame with the subject. Now of course that does depend on the subject. A butterfly is different than an elephant. Any way best to keep distance reasonable.

It could be part of the blurry photos you noticed on your current camera.

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I disagree about 10 meters being the longest distance. You are correct that blur usually increases with distance. Light traveling a long distance through air is modified, but sometimes the air is more clear than other times.

This sandhill crane was about 100 meters away. For this image, autofocus did not find the eye of the bird and focused an area on the bird.

Sandhill Crane (Antigone canadensis) at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, United States on November 2, 2023 ; distance about 100 meters

A Whooping Crane is an endangered species. I was not allowed to get closer. For this photo the camera also did not find the eye of the bird and there is some blur because the air over water is not all the same density. The distance was about 300 meters.

One Whooping Crane (Grus americana) with Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, United States on November 2, 2023 ; distance about 300 meters

The camera found the eye of the Pelican on the left. Distance about 120 meters.

American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, United States on October 16, 2023

Another Pelican at about 200 meters.

American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, United States on September 6, 2023

[garymak]

Nice shots.  Details would be most enlightening and appreciated...

[johnrmoyer]

Thanks @garymak

I put those on my web server with a few of the camera settings. Do you need more than that?

EOS R5 EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +2x III

800mm and F/11 or F/13 hand held with sometimes mode 3 image stabilization on the lens.

I use "digital lens optimizer" in Canon DPP software to remove small aperture diffraction blur. I use graphicsmagick free software command line to downsize and add a frame with text to the photos. I use Korn shell scripts I wrote and exiftool to create a web page for each photo.

There is a blind at https://www.google.com/maps/place/Salt+Plains+National+Wildlife+Refuge+Admin+Building+And+Visitor+Co... 

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/salt-plains  is the web page for the wildlife refuge. When I was a child, all of the whooping cranes that existed stopped there twice a year. The place feels familiar to me.

https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2023Nov02_SaltPlainsNWR/2023nov02_crane_IMG_7693c.html 

https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2023Sep06_SaltPlainsNWR/2023sep06_pelican_IMG_6005c.html

https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2023Oct16_SaltPlainsNWR/2023oct16_pelican_IMG_6866c.html

[garymak]

It depends on what you mean by “photographing birds.”  (Seriously.) Bald eagles circling above? Great blue herons in nests? Plovers on the ground? Hummingbirds on a feeder?  Ducks in flight? All these scenarios are quite different.  And what do you want to take? Just the bird up close or in geographic context?  A zoom lens allow flexibility for moving objects (birds) and also it is somewhat easier to find the subject in the viewfinder and then use the auto-focus (animals/eyes) to “lock on”  at 100mm than 400mm; usually you start wide and zoom in.  I used the EF100-400 ƒ5.6 in Kenya on a recent safari trip perhaps 80% of the time, and was constantly zooming in and out, depending on the movement of the animals (lots of birds.) Ultimately I came home and traded up to a RF100-500, because the 400 just wasn’t “enough.”  I have the 600mm ƒ11 which I like a lot (and also brought with) - and do not find the fixed aperture particularly limiting except on dark days.  What I do find limiting, however, is the fact that objects you are tracking can get “too close” and then, as a fixed focal length lens, you are stuck and then can't get “far enough away.”  But it’s very light weight, fast focusing, and you can get really close.  I found the fixed 600mm length very limiting to use on a safari as the distances and size of the subject (Birds? Elephants? Giraffes?) varied so much.

RE: your blurry shots, keep in mind the SS-Focal Length of the lens rule of thumb  that your SS should always be 1.5 - 2x the focal length of the lens, e.g., using a 500mm lens you should be shooting at 1/1000th to be safe.

RE: Tele-extender: controversial as there are photographers who say “no problem” and others who say “only as a last resort for special occasions…”  Frankly, I’m more in the latter.  It adds a lot of bulk and length, which adds clumsiness to your motion, and it certainly doesn’t make your photos any sharper, especially on a non-“L” lens.  Besides those things, with tax, are $550 -$650! Why not just put the money to a better/longer lens?

Anyway, it depends on what you are mainly going after.  There are times you’ll need to “back up” and there are times you wish you could get closer. My only advice is go for the longer telephoto range.  I would recommend getting the RF100-500 lens. No one ever complained that “I have too much zoom.”😉 Good luck!

(First three images all taken at 400mm, uncropped.  But these are all large birds. The 4th image, the yellow-billed Hornbill, a much smaller bird, was also taken at 400mm but cropped.  All of these are taken at around 8-10m, if memory serves...)

[ebiggs1]

"I disagree about 10 meters being the longest distance."

That's fine but it does depend on what you are photographing and what your personal satisfaction with the results is. Doesn't it? Butterflies (the OP mentioned) are different than elephants and the distance needs to be adjusted accordingly. Fundamental rule, closer is always better.

[garymak]

Agreed (and no "buts"...)

Also agree with your statement on "what your personal satisfaction with the results is."  Therein lies a huge gap, usually between professional-level and amateur-level.  For example, in 10 years going to 6 NatGeo live presentations a year, I have never seen a single blurry photo, and nothing less than tack-sharp of animals.  In the 2024 "Wildlife Photographer of the Year" exhibition I recently saw in Copenhagen, of the roughly 150 or so images, there wasn't a a single photograph that wasn't tack-sharp.  Yet, we've all seen images from happy (amateur-level) photographers who are pleased with their less than tack-sharp results, just glad "to have gotten it."  And if those result give them joy, God bless 'em!  So, to your point, it all depends on your personal standards and what you are happy with.

[ebiggs1]

"I found the fixed 600mm length very limiting to use on a safari as the distances and size of the subject (Birds? Elephants? Giraffes?) varied so much."

As do almost everybody, sooner or later, and why tele zooms are so popular. But in this case I suspect Canon was going for a reasonably priced big tele and that almost eliminates a big tele zoom. And why the new Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM Lens is causing such a stir and almost positively going to be a big hit.