What a weekend it has been! At first I thought it would be boring. The weather has been unpredictable and I thought that any attempt to go back to Østensjøvannet to take more bird photographs would be impossible.
The skies finally cleared out a little bit late in the afternoon, so I decided to take a chance and head out with the 1D Mark IV and 150-500mm lens.
I had been more systematic this time, having read the 1D Mark IV white paper a little bit more thoroughly. This time I remembered to turn on AI Servo focusing, and left the settings to their default to get to know how the camera works. And today was yet another day of discovering what sets the 1D Mark IV apart from the rest.
And the Sigma 150-500mm? It's actually a very fun lens to use! But for it's relatively small size and price, compromises have been made. It is VERY possible to take excellent pictures with this lens, but there are limitations and one has to work their way around them. The biggest drawback would probably be the speed. This lens is quite slow that on an overcast day the ISO levels would already skyrocket when the lens is zoomed. I am glad I am using the 1D Mark IV. It produces excellent photos even at ISO 12,800 and cleans up very nicely in Lightroom. But I can imagine what a nightmare it would be to shoot with this lens on a cloudy day using an APS-C sensor camera. It would be next to impossible.
So this is a lens you would use almost exclusive on very sunny days. This unfortunately limits the use of the lens somewhat. But there really is no beating the Sigma 150-500mm when it comes to price versus performance. A "slight" upgrade to this lens would be Canon's own 400mm F5.6L lens. But that costs twice as much, and doesn't have image stabilization. I am still undecided as to whether or not this is a lens I would like to keep. I love photographing wildlife at the moment and the Sigma 150-500 performs well in this regard. But apart from nature photography in very sunny weather this lens is actually not very versatile.
But still for someone like me who is still a beginner when it comes to birding, this lens hits the bullseye. And I was able to capture my very first BIF (bird in flight) shot! It was a very difficult photograph to execute. But I know with practice I will be able to nail more shots like this.
Well that is all for now folks! Hopefully I would be able to take more pictures this week. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that the weather will be nice for the rest of the week.
Comments
Post a Comment