Birds?

What's the best hand holdable lens for birds? (on a full frame Canon)

Version 2 600 or 500.

nellyle wrote in post #16756357
Version 2 600 or 500.

he said hand holdable. you must be a strong man. 400mm F5.6 or 100-400L is your best choice.

400 DO

I hand hold my 500mm f/4L IS II a lot.
I do however, also use a tripod or monopod sometimes.

hrblaine wrote in post #16756332
What's the best hand holdable lens for birds? (on a full frame Canon)

Heya,

Price range?

Full frame means you're going to need serious reach to really do it. 400mm would be the starting point in my opinion here. The 100-400L and 400L (prime) are the two starting points in that regard, from Canon. From there, you can start to venture to third party for things like the 500mm Sigma or 600mm Tamron at the same price points. Otherwise, truly "best" means going to the super telephotos by Canon with apertures F2.8 and F4. But we're talking $4k~10k price tags depending on focal length. So again, need a price range to work with, and a lot of those, are hard to hold handheld due to size and weight.

Very best,

I handhold my 500L version 1 all the time. I will say after 4 straight days in High Island, TX during spring migration last year, I was gave out. But that was literally handholding/carrying it for 7+ miles a day from 7/8am - 5/6pm.

Yep, it's not too bad once you get used to it, especially if you can brace yourself against something!

The new long lenses are indeed lighter. Hand holding the 500 and 600 is doable. Yes, monopod helps. Save some $ and buy a 7D then you might be able to get by with shorter lenses.

Since you didn't mention about your budget, I would suggest 300mm f2.8L II with 1.4X TC III or 2X TC III. They perform very very well and I use 5D3. That's my birding walk around set up

2loose wrote in post #16756549
Since you didn't mention about your budget, I would suggest 300mm f2.8L II with 1.4X TC III or 2X TC III. They perform very very well and I use 5D3. That's my birding walk around set up

That's my setup as well, works awesome.

hrblaine wrote in post #16756332
What's the best hand holdable lens for birds? (on a full frame Canon)

depends on your budget but the starting point for birds is the 400mm 5.6
http://www.birdforum.n​et

The latest supertelephotos are really a lot lighter. The latest 500/4 strikes me as a lens that would be considered reasonable for handholding by some folks as it is 3.1kg.

The 600/4 is 3.9 kg
The 800/5.6 is 4.5 kg.

Those are both (IMO) beyond what most folks can manage without support.

I've been useing a 70-300 with a 1.4 extender on a 40D. I'm retired so a $10,000.00 lens just isn't doable. Over the years, I've got as primes, a 35 and a 50 plus a Sigma 105 macro. Zooms are the above mentioned 70-300, a 24-105 and a 70-200 f4. Maybe I'll stick with what I have for a bit and suffer along with the 70-300 + 1.4 extender. <g>

hrblaine wrote in post #16757070
I've been useing a 70-300 with a 1.4 extender on a 40D. I'm retired so a $10,000.00 lens just isn't doable. Over the years, I've got as primes, a 35 and a 50 plus a Sigma 105 macro. Zooms are the above mentioned 70-300, a 24-105 and a 70-200 f4. Maybe I'll stick with what I have for a bit and suffer along with the 70-300 + 1.4 extender. <g>

In this case, i would definitely suggest the Tamron 150-600VC. While it's far from perfect, great shots can be taken with it. It's got the reach, decent weight (for that reach), and best of all... price... to fill your needs. Keep in mind, there are always compromises, and price (1st) and weight (2nd) are generally the biggest.

Stock is pretty-much non-existent right now, but new batches should be coming out within a month.

Check out the Image-sample thread, to see what it's capable of.