Crow chasing a red kite carrying a pike's head in its talons.
April 2018
Nikon D7200, Nikon 200-500mm ISO 400, f/7.1, 1/1600s, 500mm
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Thank you in turn for the insights. I also adore Red Kites, and these days it's rare I don't see one in the sky somewhere on any walk I do (Reading, Berkshire). Even so, if I've my camera with me and the kite is more than a small black shadow, up it goes!
I've currently an F11 600mm Canon lens - so your aperture and speed are things I can currently only dream of ... though there is a new lens on order.
No worries :), I lived in Reading in the mid 90's and never saw one, now I can go to my sister's near Windsor and see multiple kites in her garden. I've now seen them as far east as the north Norfolk coast but I think they have been introduced in that area.
F11 is going to make things trickier for sure. What lens are you looking for?
Yes, it's amazing how they've spread: they clearly just needed the chance.
As to the lens, Canon are just bringing out an RF 200mm-800mm F6.3-9.
It was described as "moderately expensive" (hah! Though I do know the lens they were likely thinking of as truly expensive at some x4 the cost) but I love bird photography, so have a deposit down.
That is an interesting lens, 800mm on the long end at f/9 is a pretty reasonable compromise for that extra 200mm over the typical super telephoto zoom lenses at 600mm f/6.3. I will be very interested to see how you get on with it over the next year, especially how much you shoot it at 800mm. Did you consider any other models e.g. The sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM?
It should be interesting, I just hope the weight won't be an issue. A bit more light, a bit more reach when I want it, but also able to zoom down to 200mm when that bird I dearly want to photo has decided to hope really close and yes I've lost shots that way).
I do suspect at 800mm will prove rather hard to bring to bear on anything but a contentedly perched bird.
The Sigma range for Canon all need EF-RF converters, which are said to be good, but I suspect lose something. Indeed, I seem to remember looking closely at them many moons ago, and deciding they didn't meet my needs. That said, perhaps I should have returned to looking at them once more.
Canon get some serious stick for not letting companies like Sigma use the RF interface directly. However, I chose Canon before I knew about that issue, so am stuck with it unless I want to start from scratch.
I didn't realise the sigma needed an adaptor for cannon, I can understand why you would see that as a potential issue.
When I bought my first digital camera I spent months trying to decide which brand to go for. In the end I picked Nikon because of the backwards and sideways compatibility of the lenses. I'm too heavily invested in it now to change, but in the early days I might have considered it.
I must admit to enjoying the comments section on DPreview when I looked up your new lens. I'd forgotten what an enjoyable shitshow the fanboy posts are like; arguments over mtf charts and youtube reviews, that was 20 mins well spent lol.
Not sure I saw the same line of comments, but the one I started with guessed at no weather proofing, which wasn't a good start at truth. I feel I'm now committed so will take the normal fanboy choice of defending my choice to the death (errr ... maybe not).
Too invested to change - oh yes: 16mm, 35mm, 50mm, 100mm macro - v. nice, and a cheapie zoom I never use as it has no AF/MF switch, and the aforementioned 600mm. I do wonder if I should have gone the zoom route rather than prime, but choosing "today's lens" helps settle my mind in the right mode. So, a zoom is definitely an experiment.