Lenses For Bird Photography

I have noticed a lot of click-throughs to my blog from the search phrase 'lenses for bird photography' so I thought I might make some suggestions and recommendations based on my experiences as a bird photographer so far.

If you have read this blog before you may know that I only took up bird photography at the end of 2008 and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I started with my Canon EOS300 35mm film camera with the 70-300mm zoom lens and quickly discovered that this lens would not be long enough to get as close up as I would like. I got some results shooting larger birds but not small garden birds, which I found to be an ideal place to start building up experience and knowledge on how best to capture these quick little creatures.

Having yet to switch to digital I decided that if I was going to be serious about photographing birds I would have to invest in some new equipment and so with my limited budget I purchased a Canon 450D 12.1 mega pixel digital SLR with 18-55mm lens and a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. This lens has so far served me very well as I am able to get fairly close to my subjects, the robins, blue tits and finches that visit my garden to feed. There are of course limitations and to get extremely close you could try adding an extender, but with this lens you lose auto-focus and this is an essential as you don't have enough time to manually focus and will miss shots. If your budget will allow I would suggest the Canon EF 500mm f/4.0L USM IS that will retain auto-focus with the Canon EF 1.4x II extender increasing your reach to 700mm, or the Canon EF 600mm f/4.0L USM IS that will give 840mm with the 1.4x extender. Of course we are talking about several thousands of pounds above the £1100 I paid for my 100-400mm for either of these but they are regarded as two of the best lenses for wildlife photography.

It is important to know your subject before you buy any new cameras or lenses, for example, with my 100-400mm I can only get moderately close to garden birds because they are particularly small. However, for larger birds and wildfowl I have found the lens to be perfectly adequate and it is lighter and smaller than the two I mentioned before.

For my full article please go to Which Lens For Bird Photography.