Got a sunny day finally, shot some birds!

[wfooshee]

Found a Tamron 200-500 f/5-6.3 on eBay, returnable within a few days, and about 60% of a new one's price. Take a shot, right?

OK, it's here, and it's been raining ever since it arrived! I did take it out into the back yard, shot a squirrel, a weed, and the dog, but it was cloudy and dark enough I had to go to ISO 1600 to get a shutter speed I could handhold, so the images are crap from noise. I also set up a metal tape measure across a room and shot that with a flash just to see that it was sharp and focusable, and it seems to be.

It doesn't auto-focus with my D5000 because it needs the motor in the camera, but I knew that going in and it doesn't bother me. guess I'll have to find a D90 or D7000, now, right?

So far so good, but waiting for some sunshine! Big worry now is how'm I gonna lug this thing around????

Camera bag, holds body, flash, 3 lenses, 3 batteries, charger, cables, etc. and the lens bag in front of it.

Mounted on the camera, with my 18-55, 55-200, and 70-300VR behind for comparison. Lens is extended to 500mm, and its glare shade is behind it, too.

Squirrel!!! (Saw no bird in the yard or trees yesterday.) Picture is useless except to show the range, because of the noise level and backlighting.

My stepdaughter's dog in a field.
OK, not a field, it's the back yard. I refuse to mow before March!

All of these were handheld, but this one of the weed flowers I put on a tripod, and even tripped the camera via its self timer so I wasn't touching it. For scale, the same kind of weeds you see in the dog picture

The tape measure pic, 1024x768 crop from the center, so this is pixel-for-pixel.

Now I need some sunshine so I can see some real color, and get the ISO down to a manageable noise level. Then I'll try to post some good pics. I just had to get out there that this thing was here! Biggest lens I've ever had my hands on!

 

[Pupik]

The PITA with long lenses are that you typically can't shoot handheld with anything less than 1/(focal length)" unless you have a tripod. At 500mm, you've got to have quite a bit of sunlight. And for a cheaper zoom lens like this, your range of apertures is really limited. I have a 80-210mm Tamron lens, and it has a terrible time focusing on items that are close together, but just a few inches apart, and the colors aren't impressive unless it's a nice clear day outside, or post-process it endlessly.

Still, I always wanted something like that just for giggles. Not bad results for ISO 1600, though; at that level, my results are too noisy to be of any use 99% of the time.

Man up and deal with your murse-ness.

 

[wfooshee]

I bought it for two reasons. I go out to the state park here a lot and go "hunting." Birds, deer, gators, insects, whatever. My longest lens has always been the kit 55-200 until last summer, when I got the nice 70-300 VR. When I saw this one on eBay I figured with just a bit more reach I'd have a bit more fun. That's reason #1.

The seller was unloading it for about 60% of the retail price, so I gave maybe 50 bucks more than I gave for the 70-300, making it "affordable." That's reason #2. (But I have to put off new living-room furniture now.)

Seller had a 7-day return but I think I'm keeping it, based on the little I've been able to do so far. I'm actually quite satisfied with the sharpness, although focusing is critical, especially at anything less than 30 feet or so.

As for speed, I can compare with the 70-300 since it overlaps, and with the 55-200 since they meet at 200, and for similar focal lengths it's faster than either of those. Not by much, maybe 1/3rd stop. but faster is faster! So there!

I know about the 1/(focal length) rule and have violated it repeatedly. Well, you have to for panning shots at races and air shows, but I've made the effort on other shots, too. VR makes that lens a lot easier to play with regarding shutter speeds, probably allowing 3 stops slower than without. This lens has no stabilization, so I need good light. That's why I'm whining about the weather. It's been great, right up to the day the lens arrived, haven't seen the sun since.

I'm going to Sebring in a couple of weeks for the 12-hour, not sure I'll even take this lens. I was excited to have it here in time, but the thought of carrying it around all day and not finding good use for it bugs me. It's a nature lens, not a sports lens. The Sebring shots I got last year were with a D50 (6mp) and a max 200mm zoom. Image data shows I was usually at 80 to 100mm as I shot, so I'm not sure I need Super-Lens down there. And with the trip being a motorcycle camping excursion, it will just take too much space, I'm afraid. Everything else fits in the camera bag, which fits in the side-case of the bike.

Still, if the sun would come out again I'll see what I can find out in the woods or at the park.

 

[wfooshee]

Finally!!! A sunny day!!! First one since the lens arrived over two weeks ago. Went out to the local state park, looking for some wildlife.

I shot all day at 1/1000 shutter-priority ISO 400, all the way out to 500mm. I had intended to try some 300 or 400 mm shots, and never thought about it while I was out there. Senile, I guess.

It doesn't auto-focus on my D5000, which doesn't have the focus motor in the camera body. A D90, D7000, or the upper pro cameras would autofocus this lens. The focus was more critical than I expected, and modern cameras don't give any viewfinder assistance to focusing like the old split-image rangefinder prisms you used to have. (My camera will light the "in-focus" dot, but it's way down in the bottom-left of the display, and not very useful. It would be cool if they could flash the sensor frame when it's in focus, letting you leave your eye on the subject. Hmm.. Letter to Nikon begins....)

On distant subjects the sharpness is disappointing at best. That may be a focus issue, or it may be something I just can't compare since I didn't shoot at any shorter lengths. The image in the viewfinder also behaved oddly while focusing, not just blurring out of focus, but distorting in a circular pattern, like expanding away from the center. Very weird.

Here's an egret and a blue heron in flight. The egret was maybe 600 feet away, and the heron was about half that. These first three images are 1280x960 crops of the original frame, so they're pixel-by-pixel from the original frame.

Here's an egret gathering some nesting material, and a shot of the trees on the island where the birds are nesting.

Blue heron from about 40 or 50 feet

And from about 10 feet

A mockingbird on the ground. This was almost at minimum focus distance, he was maybe 10 feet away.

Another one kinda following the first one around. Stalking, sort of.

Courtship display?

Another thought about this thing. The bokeh is really annoying. Items behind the focus aren't just blurred, they seem to be duplicated vertically as well. In the last picture, look at that twig that sticks out in front of his right wing. The effect is very apparent in the first frame, giving a cross-hatch look to the background that shouldn't be there. Now that you know what to look for, the other pictures show it as well.

 

[Skython]

Nice! Some good settings in the camera. The background blur is very nice. 👍 Though I was wondering whether I was going to see photos of living birds or ones you had just shot.