Blue Rock Birds
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 p.1 #1 · Top Value Mid-Tier Lens Upgrade for Bird/Wildlife | |
I’m a hobby photographer who has fallen in love with bird and wildlife photography after acquiring a used RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM and then upgrading from a used RP to a barely used R7 body that’s been working wonderfully. I’ve also acquired a 1.4x RF extender. I’ve been working hard to practice in all light conditions and also getting the hang of Lightroom, so I feel I have a pretty strong sense of what I can accomplish with the gear I have, and what I can further improve upon using that gear.
I’m now hunting for lens upgrades, with a budget somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000. Like most bird photographers, I’d love to improve sharpness and focal length. As someone who has a day job that’s not photography, I’d love something that does well in low light. In addition to dawn and evening hours being perfect for my schedule, I live near a lot of heavily wooded parks, and quietly navigating through the woods and along the creeks with a camera in hand has been a joy, even if the conditions are challenging.
Perhaps foolishly, I took a gamble on a used, “eBay refurbished” EF 300mm f/4 L IS USM for <$500. Unfortunately, after a few thousand shots over nearly a week, I ended up returning it because the autofocus performance was barely able to bring anything fully into focus, even still subjects in well-lit and high contrast situations, which I took to be a mechanical defect. The autofocus also seemed extremely incapable tracking any subject, which might have been related, but seemed like it might represent a deeper issue with the capabilities of the old lens.
I also grabbed a dirt cheap Canon refurb of the RF 75-300 just to experiment with how I liked shooting with a 300mm lens that could hold a reasonable amount of focus — it’s fun, but the well-known chromatic aberration issues are a concern for me in Lightroom, since it’s definitely showing up, but I’m slightly green-red colorblind and I’m not sure if I’m missing anything at that wavelength. My takeaway is that I don't necessarily need more focal length
I'd like a lens that I'd can take out onto a sandbar to sit down and capture sharp images of swallows skimming the creek in evening light. I'd like a lens that feels like it can quickly grab a sharp shot of a Wood Thrush in a dense thicket before it flies away. I'd like a lens where I don't feel like I'm running up against its constraints more than I'm relying on its strengths.
My default impulse here is to get the RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM as a dependable all-rounder. The other leading candidate is probably the RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM, but my feeling is that I'm not much of a tripod guy, and most of my best shots are not happening at that range. While I'd love to have an 800mm to take down to the marshes for some big migrations, I feel like the RF 800mm f/11 is cheap enough that I could add that later without breaking the bank.
That said, I wanted to ask if I was missing any other high-value alternatives among EF lenses in this price band. I have an EF 1.4 Extender II, by the way, so I don't know if some of these would need the III. The other lenses I was considering are (1) EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM; (2) EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II; (3) EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM; (4) EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM. Do any of these supersede the 100-500 or the 200-800 under the circumstances I've described?
Also, is there any expectation that the upcoming RF 300-600mm will impact the price points for these lenses I'm considering? Should I wait until September?
If you made it this far, to thank you for your time, enjoy (or critique) some amateur bird photos:
 Bank Shot 4 by Blue Rock Birds, on Flickr
 Delicious by Blue Rock Birds, on Flickr
 Splashdown by Blue Rock Birds, on Flickr
 Golden Hour by Blue Rock Birds, on Flickr
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