I have finally made the plunge into the world of photgraphy and I must say I am hooked.
I just purchased the "Bigma" and took it for a test run at my local zoo. I have put the pictures on Flickr and would welcome any advice or comments you may have.
These are the best of the bunch that I took. Many of them were blurred especially at the telephoto end but I have since had some advice on shutter speeds so my next shot should be better.
Those look really good especially for a first go around with a new lens. If you plan hand-holding or shooting subjects that are likely to move around high shutter speeds are a must. A good rule of thumb is 1/focal length of the lens. If you are shooting at the 500mm end make sure you are shooting a shutter speed of 1/500 for sharp shots or even faster if you want to figure in a 1.5X APS sensor size. Best advice I can give is shoot as much as you have time for.
-Thanks for sharing,
Cristobal
Thanks for viewing my pictures. The next time I shoot with this lens I will play around with the shutter speeds and see what happens. I guess it's just going to be trial and error but that's also part of the fun in learning.
From reading your posts I now know that a Bigma is a Sigma's 50-500 mm Super Telephoto Zoom Lens. You would get much better feedback if you posted 1-3 photos with a specific question and without the "Bigma" type terms that require research to answer.
I agree with Cristobal - shutter should be greater than 1/100 or 1/(mm of lens x 1.6) or 1/800 for this lens. Lots of your shots are in range of 1/80 which is difficult even with a much smaller lens.
In addition, I recommend a monopod to reduce some of the shake but allow much mobility for wildlife shots.
Last wide open with maximum magnification will result in very tight depth with this lens so I would turn on center focus 1/2 depress on object and then reframe and shoot. Alternatively move up to f8 and manual focus.
And if the subject is moving turn the ai servo on if the subject is moving.
