600mm early attempts
A 600mm f/4 lens is one heck of a monster, all six and a half kiloes of it. However, once onto the tripod and well-balanced on the Wimberley Sidekick, it's fairly easy to operate. The only times I'm reminded of its physical size are when taking the eye away from the viewfinder, and when the AF occasionally start hunting. It doesn't do that often, though.
Here's one result from yesterday afternoon:
Pentax K10D, FA* 600mm f/4, sturdy tripod with ballhead and Sidekick.
1/3000s, f/9.5, ISO 800.
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4 comments:
Nice composition, sharp but the necks look a bit blown. Curious why you opted for iso800?
Thanks for commenting, Speedie!
According to the histogram in the TIFF file, there are details on the birds' neck. I may have been sloppy with my web conversion.
I opted for ISO 800 for several reasons. I expect to need high ISO most of the time for bird shots, to freeze motion and get the necessary DOF. So I figured I needed to test it out even if I could have gotten away with ISO 400 or maybe even 200 in this particular case.
And to tell you the brutal truth I'm not really familiar with high ISOs at all. I use ISO 100 90% of the time and have never before ventured above ISO 400.
So I'm in a learning phase in many ways... :-)
Congrats on the lens. Amazing that you could get it. I take it you ordered it from new ?
I guess for birds, the 400/5.6 turned out too short.
Though you already got the tripod for the 600 mm lens. Now you need a K20 to go really high Iso :-) It never stops ;-D
It truly never stops. :-(
The 400/5.6 would probably suffice for many birding situations; I've never really been a dedicated bird photographer. You can see that from the 400/5.6 -shots I have in the Pentax gallery.
I bought the lens 2nd hand. The cost of the thing, new from Japan, is not justified. One could buy both a similar lens and a dedicated camera from a different brand and still spend less than what this one costs new at the moment.
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