Originally Posted by
Joel Eade
This a house finch (orange variant) taken in my backyard. A setup using a feeder and hide. Canon 40D, 300mm 2.8L + 1.4 TC. Just a comment on recent thread : If you look at MTF charts or any other comparison method the prime lenses are generally sharper than the zoom lenses and I would suspect adding the 1.4 TC would have more degrading effect on a zoom lens versus a prime lens. (probably why the 500mm f4 is considered by many to be the king of bird lenses) With good technique, however, excellent images can be produced with either lens. For birds on a perch and using a tripod I try to keep a shutter speed of 1/focal length. So with a 400mm lens on a 1.6 crop factor sensor that would be 1/640 sec. If you do that it will definitely help your images to be sharper. Of course to freeze birds in flight it requires much faster shutter speeds like 1/1600 to 1/3200. Push the ISO up to get the speed you need so that you get adequate enough exposure to minimize noise. Just my 2 centavos worth of advice.
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