I finally bit the bullet and bought lenses for my EOS 1D Mark IV. It was a leap of faith, but I did purchase the HUMONGOUS Sigma 150-500mm and the EF 50mm F1.4 USM lens, which will serve as the walk around lens for the time being.
I was simply too ambitious today. After I finished work I went to FotoVideo to purchase the lenses. I then had to go home to unpack the lenses (I unpacked the Sigma first), attach it to the camera and went out again to take some test shots. In Østensjøvannet of all places. I felt a little bit stupid going to that place to take pictures of birds, when I hardly know how to operate the camera properly yet.
And of course the first attempt to take pictures with a very advanced camera with a very big piece of glass attached almost resulted in total failure. I was totally trigger happy. I turned on continuous shooting at 10 frames per second. Hearing the camera take pictures in rapid succeession was quite addicting! But of course shooting that many frames per second is quite useless if you don't turn on AF tracking, which of course I didn't. The result: almost 300 pictures taken in a span of two hours (!) and only a few keepers.
But the keepers were not so bad. Luckily the "Sun-Sniper Pro Steel & Bear" camera strap which I am using instead of the crappy neck strap that are bundled with almost all DSLRs made carrying the lens much easier. I still have to take many more test shots to fully understand what the lens can and cannot do. But so far, I am impressed with what it has delivered.
Stopped down to about F8 and in really good lighting conditions the lens delivers really sharp images. Luckily the EOS 1D Mark IV also performs very well even at high ISO's, because the lens is quite slow. But it's not bad considering the price. The best telephoto lenses for birds and sports photography costs just about the same as a brand new car. I am NOT ready to take my photography to that level yet!
Birding is really hard though, but fun! It's a great way to learn the different techniques in photography as it forces you to put into practice every single knowledge you have about composition, lighting, handholding techniques and camera settings. But of course it is also very expensive.
I will continue to test the Sigma lens hopefully on Sunday. There is so much going on in the city this Saturday that I would rather walk around the streets and test the "nifty fifty" instead. Until then, I wish you all a great weekend ahead!
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