Back To The Birds

This is a professional Canon 100-400mm lens costing a fortune new! I could never afford a lens like that. Not when I'm retired and on a fixed income. Besides, in the years I was teaching we never really made much of a salary. So I gave up the idea of ever owning one. Then one day in September I ran into a former student of mine that has become a professional photographer. He was shooting with Canon Pro Body and a 300 mm F/2.8 lens that I knew cost thousands of dollars. He said it was really a fantastic lens that he bought to replace his Canon 100-400mm telephoto lens because the old lens was too heavy and not fast enough. Then he said he was going to sell that lens. My heart skipped a beat! I asked what he was going to ask for it and he gave me the price. In a state of shock I blurted out, "I want it!" So that's how I got this BIG, HEAVY beautiful lens. It sort of recked my Camera/Computer fund for the rest of the year but I now have a lens that is rated as a 600mm telephoto which I can use to photograph birds at quite a distance. I won't be going very far from my car with this monster plus a heavy tripod but I'll be able to shoot birds that I couldn't get before. 

My wife took this picture of me in the field trying to use the camera hand-held. I found out that only works if there is plenty of light because this telephoto only has an f/4-5.6 lens. Getting the lens late in the summer means I'll have to wait until the spring migration to really try it out. At this time of the year we only have a limited number of birds to shoot. Those will include the hawks, eagles, ducks, geese and woodpeckers. For the birds that come to my feeders I'll still use the lighter, smaller 70-300mm Canon Lens. (That one is not classes as a Pro lens, is not white nor dose it have a red ring around the front of the lens.That's how you can tell if it's a Canon Pro Lens.)  

Here is a Bald Eagle I shot near the Wisconsin River last winter with the 300mm telephoto. If you click on the picture you will see it isn't very sharp.

I tried to enlarge and sharpen the picture but it doesn't meet the standard that I have set for my pictures.

Guess who arrived back this week? The Slate-colored Juncos.

They fly down from up north and winter here in Southern Wisconsin.