Longer and slower, or shorter and faster?

[Brendan7]

Hi guys, I am looking for a medium telephoto lens, and was wondering if I should get a faster, shorter lens (i.e 300mm f 4) or a slower, longer lens (i.e 400mm f 5.6).


I will be using the lens as a bird photography lens for travel.


I have a price limit of $2000.


Any suggestions or tips would be really appreciated.


Thanks!


Brendan

[Daniel Browning]

I will be using the lens as a bird photography lens for travel.

That's easy! 400mm f/5.6. It's longer *and* sharper than the 300mm f/4. It doesn't have IS, but it really is just that much sharper.

I have a price limit of $2000.

That's too bad. Canon's birding lens range goes like this:


$1150 -> 400mm f/5.6
$5800 -> 500mm f/4
$7600 -> 600mm f/4
$10,600 -> 800mm f/5.6


As you can see, there is a big gap between $1000 and $6000. Ideally, Canon would release a 500mm f/5.6 IS for $3000 or less, which would allow folks like you and I to upgrade from the 400mm f/5.6 without going all the way to $6000.


Digiscoping (connecting the camera to a telescope) is an option for inexpensive, but manual-focus bird photography.


If you don't already have a 50D, you might consider using some of that $2,000 budget to upgrade, because the increased pixel density is like a 1.2X teleconverter (compared to a 10 MP APS-C camera), but unlike real teleconverters, it has no optical aberrations.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

For bird photography you can NEVER have enough focal length, get the LONGEST lens that you CAN afford!