Wildlife@150 yards

[davidwhatley]

I have a friend that wants to get some close up shots of deer at his ranch. Most shots will be in the 150 yard range. Recomendations? He will be borrowing my 300D and he will purcase the lens. And NO, he wont buy an "L"
:(

[lefturn99]

What's his bidget?

When I was in racing, we had a saying: "Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?" I'm finding out it's the same in photography and I can't go as fast as I want.

[RichardtheSane]

If he won't buy L that suggests a budget.

Sounds like the sigma 50-500 would do the job then...

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Funny....an L would be one of few lenses that would get the job done well, but he's against it. Sounds like a cash flow problem. I agree about the bigma. If the 100-400L wouldn't do it, then I wouldn't blame him for not getting an L, as the only "L" that would get it done would cost as much as a car.

[fortinaa]

I think he'll have to stretch his budget and get a Bigma for that. Take a look at the attached photos. I can't even guess how far away they were due to being on a "mountainside" but the 2 in comparison should give you a good idea of what can be done. Oh, and these are full frame shots reduced to 800px wide.

Wide view at 116mm
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~fortinaa/bigma1.jpg


Shot from the same location at 500mm

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~fortinaa/bigma2.jpg

[pturton]

With an 800mm lens on a 1.6x crop camera, the FOV is approximately 13 ft W x 8.5 ft H. Just about right to fill the frame with a couple of good size white-tails. Hope he gets a solid tripod as well;-) Might get better results by setting up a blind and using a shorter lens.

And of course there is option 243. ;-)

[cfcRebel]

In addition to Bigma and tripod, your friend needs some camo wear, from head to toe.

[lon10c]

150 yards is a long way, even for deer. (1-1/2 football fields)

Work on a blind or camo for you and your gear and get closer.

[wiselion]

I know spending $5500-$6000 is alot of cash, but to shoot Deer at that distance (and get decent quality shots) you will need a 400 2.8 or 500 or 600 L. I shoot Deer as my hobby, and have tried all the other L tele primes. Nothing can reach Deer with quality at that distance except my 500. Even my Sigma 120-300 with converter did not get it done properly. This is why I spent the $5500.00. If you can get at 50 yards most of the other L's (300 f/4, 400 f 5.6) will be fine. It all comes down to quality at those distances, and I can't see anything else but a good L or Sigma EX lens to do the job.

[Rubi Jane]

What about renting the right lens for the job versus laying out a ton of dough?

[wiselion]

What about renting the right lens for the job versus laying out a ton of dough?

Now that would be a great idea.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Nature photography is not about getting a lens long enough to take photos from the living room. 150 yards.. is... well... MUCH too far away.

I agree thought that @ 500mm for under $1K the Bigma is a good choice.

He'll still have to get much closer though.. like 50 yards minimum.

[afviper]

Who says you need a big expensive lens for wildlife? Sure it helps, but similar results can be achieved with some patiance. Here is a photo of a deer with my Sigma 70-300mm APO macro. This was at 300mm 1/1000s ISO400 f5.6. And this lens can be had for well under $200. This lens does have some limitations, the biggest one is focus speed. I got pretty lucky with this shot. I was standing about 15-20ft away from the deer which was just standing there looking at me for at least a couple minutes.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b184/AFviper/deersm2.jpg

[ron chappel]

Well done on posting that shot afviper!
You make a very good point ,one hinted at by several others.That is - you can spend a fortune buying long lenses in attempts to fil the frame.

At some point one just has to admit that finding a way to get closer is far preferable to(and massively cheaper than) buying super expensive long lenses.

David i see you haven't got back with a suggested budget yet.As no one has covered the less expensive options,i'll do that.
*by the way-a quick easy hint.If you want to know what focal length tele lens you want,just do this...
Get some cardboard and cut a hole in it the same size as the image sensor of the camera (about 15x23mm is close enough)
Now hold that up and frame the subject with it.How far from your eye is it? That's the focal length lens you'll want! ;)
This trick is not very acurate for judging wide lenses but works perfectly for longer ones.

For $200 he can buy a 300mm consumer zoom (the sigma shown above is about the best).It'll work very well if he can find a way to get closer.
There are also some quite good but cheap manual focus lens in longer focal lengths.
This kind of lens gives results far above it's price- ( http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-EOS-Mount-500mm-Lens-NEW-Digital-Rebel-XT-20D_W0QQitemZ7600327715QQcategoryZ106844QQrdZ1QQcm dZViewItem )
I've had alot to do with various cheap telezooms and find these be as sharp as the better 300mm consumer zooms.
Avoid the cheap mirror lenses ! They are not worth it- seriously
Other options are the better brand mirror lenses such as : nikkor 500/8 ,Tamron SP500 , Vivitar 'solid cat' ,Sigma 600mm,etc
These are better than the cheap lens above but not quite as sharp as a proper Pro lens (but about as good as a long zoom like the bigma)

[Jman13]

A quick trig calculation, assuming a 2 yard wide object (your deer) at a distance of 150 yards: To fill the frame, you'd require a lens with an angle of view of 0.76 degrees. An 800mm lens has an angle of view of 3.1 degrees on full frame = 1.94 degrees on a crop camera. So...to fill the frame with a deer from 150 yards would require a focal length of:

(drumroll) 2040mm

Good luck!

In other words, get a Bigma for 500mm at a reasonable budget, then get a LOT closer than 150 yards, or buy a Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6L and a 1.4x TC..that'd get you close. :)

[Rich S]

Get closer....save money...it's more fun close...Rich http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc150/blackies_owner/IMG_6555_edited-1.jpg

[scrumpy]

This thread is almost three years old :rolleyes:

[Karl Johnston]

So? :D still good lol

[Rich S]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!! Why is it still here??? LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tom Reichner]

Hello, David! I've just spent alot of time photographing whitetail deer - about 14 days, dawn to dark, in the past two months devoted entirely to whitetails. I think that your friend would benefit greatly by attempting to get closer than 150 yards. Significantly closer. To be quite honest, the only way I can imagine getting acceptable images of a whitetail deer at 150 yards is with the new Canon 800mm, which costs over $12,000. And he'd need a 1.4 converter on that, as well. And even if he was able to borrow a 600mm f4, a suitable tripod for that lens, with a ball head, would be around $800 minimum. Photographing any wildlife at a great distance is an extremely costly proposition. Reality sucks sometimes. If he really just absolutely can't get any closer than 150 yards, then one alternative may be a high grade point and shoot with a 15x optical zoom combined with a teleconverter. A friend of mine recently bought one of those Sony H-series cameras (I think it was an H9 or an H8, but Im not entirely positive). Sony makes a teleconverter for it, which increased it's zoom by 1.7x. Altogether he only paid about 4 or 5 hundred for the setup. Sure, it's no SLR, but it may actually be better for what your friend wants to do than using a good SLR with a 300mm lens and then having to crop it down so much that the resulting image is unacceptable. I still think he should put some effort and planning into how to get much closer. With a 300mm lens on that 300D he'll really need to be within 40 yards for quality images. Few things are more fun than pursuing whitetail bucks with a camera, and I wish him the best of luck ! PS: He'd better get at it soon - here in Washington state and Montana almost all the bucks have shed their antlers already. -Tom

[camerageorge]

Another vote for the budget Bigma and getting closer unless Nasa have a spare telescope lying around :)

[oldtimingman]

close is cool...........

335533


..........old