You can comfortably walk and can still shoot extended periods of time without absolutely needing a tripod, but your lens will be short enough that you'll miss shots.
You take a long enough lens but are now so bogged down in weight and tripod that you're tied to location enough that you'll miss shots. You're also broke because big glass and good tripods aren't cheap.
I don't agree you need a tripod for long lenses with modern camera bodies with good ibis, high shutter speeds, and ois on the lens itself.
Most of my shots are handheld at the max my lens will zoom, 500mm apsc or 750mm full frame equivalent then cropped quite heavily.
Most of it is just shooting fast enough, the reciprocal rule of having your shutter speed no lower than your full frame equivalent focal length really does make a big difference.
You should be shooting at least 1000th/second for birds in flight unless you going for a blurred background and panning with the bird stationary in the frame, so it should usually be a non issue.
The real problem with super long lenses is that they are slow so you risk high iso and under exposure, but modern sensors are so good at low light detail and denoise algorithms so good you can fix in post if its raw.
Oh for sure, I can totally get sharp shots handheld thanks to IBIS, but I still find I do two different types of shooting just because of the weight of kit and I don't even have anything past a 400mm.
My shorter lenses I can shoot 6 hours without much fatigue. With the 100-400 after a couple hours I'm contorting my back to balance things and hand shake gets worse as fatigue sets in. So I'm just much more likely to at least bring a monopod with anything near the weight of the 100-400.
Makes sense. How much does your big lens and body weigh?
My longest lens with the body in shooting weight (so with battery and sd card) is about 2.3kg, its heavy but not unmanageable for long time periods for me.
I do have a tripod, but that with the gimbal adds another 2.5kg, so then it becomes a pita even with the strap I rigged to carry the tripod and the camera as a unit. I only tend to take that if I know I am shooting at one or more stationary perch or dive spots for a while.
My monopod has a foot so its a bit heavier than normal, that with my three way head that can double as a gimbal is about 1kg, I still only take it if I think I am going to camp out for a while. The extra weight walking is worse than the weight shooting as I normally spend longer walking than shooting.
My next longest lens works out about 900g less, its still way heavier than my Voigtlanders, they take the total weight down to about 500g including the body in shooting weight, lol.
Right now my heaviest lens is my 200mmF2, which is a 2.3kg lens by itself. XT4 adds another 600 grams or so. Recently sold the 100-400 so we'll see if I miss the length.
If I'm stuck on something interesting for an extended period I really start feeling that lens without a pod.
That 200mm weight is bonkers, the 500mm prime is a whole kilo lighter and about the same as the Fuji 100-400mm I think, the price you pay for F2 I guess. It does look a lovely lens, one day, one day!
I got to go to the Galapagos, and we swam at this one beach and the boobies were diving just like this all around us. Had a couple splash me. Entirely surreal.
I wouldn't bother, personally. I have the Canon 1.4x and the 2x, and the 2x in particular is worthless. It adds so much aberration to the image that there is no advantage in quality versus just cropping the un-extended image and blowing it up. But above and beyond that the equivalent of three full stops of light loss means that you stand a good chance of not being able to make the shot at all.
So you can basically forget about taking pictures of birds with it around sunrise or sunset, or on cloudy days, or under any kind of tree cover. It's a good thing birds never show up in any of those conditions...
14 Comments
SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 91d
Your choice:
You can comfortably walk and can still shoot extended periods of time without absolutely needing a tripod, but your lens will be short enough that you'll miss shots.
You take a long enough lens but are now so bogged down in weight and tripod that you're tied to location enough that you'll miss shots. You're also broke because big glass and good tripods aren't cheap.
tankplanker@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 90d
I don't agree you need a tripod for long lenses with modern camera bodies with good ibis, high shutter speeds, and ois on the lens itself.
Most of my shots are handheld at the max my lens will zoom, 500mm apsc or 750mm full frame equivalent then cropped quite heavily.
Most of it is just shooting fast enough, the reciprocal rule of having your shutter speed no lower than your full frame equivalent focal length really does make a big difference.
You should be shooting at least 1000th/second for birds in flight unless you going for a blurred background and panning with the bird stationary in the frame, so it should usually be a non issue.
The real problem with super long lenses is that they are slow so you risk high iso and under exposure, but modern sensors are so good at low light detail and denoise algorithms so good you can fix in post if its raw.
SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 90d
Oh for sure, I can totally get sharp shots handheld thanks to IBIS, but I still find I do two different types of shooting just because of the weight of kit and I don't even have anything past a 400mm.
My shorter lenses I can shoot 6 hours without much fatigue. With the 100-400 after a couple hours I'm contorting my back to balance things and hand shake gets worse as fatigue sets in. So I'm just much more likely to at least bring a monopod with anything near the weight of the 100-400.
tankplanker@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 89d
Makes sense. How much does your big lens and body weigh?
My longest lens with the body in shooting weight (so with battery and sd card) is about 2.3kg, its heavy but not unmanageable for long time periods for me.
I do have a tripod, but that with the gimbal adds another 2.5kg, so then it becomes a pita even with the strap I rigged to carry the tripod and the camera as a unit. I only tend to take that if I know I am shooting at one or more stationary perch or dive spots for a while.
My monopod has a foot so its a bit heavier than normal, that with my three way head that can double as a gimbal is about 1kg, I still only take it if I think I am going to camp out for a while. The extra weight walking is worse than the weight shooting as I normally spend longer walking than shooting.
My next longest lens works out about 900g less, its still way heavier than my Voigtlanders, they take the total weight down to about 500g including the body in shooting weight, lol.
SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 89d
Right now my heaviest lens is my 200mmF2, which is a 2.3kg lens by itself. XT4 adds another 600 grams or so. Recently sold the 100-400 so we'll see if I miss the length.
If I'm stuck on something interesting for an extended period I really start feeling that lens without a pod.
tankplanker@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 89d
That 200mm weight is bonkers, the 500mm prime is a whole kilo lighter and about the same as the Fuji 100-400mm I think, the price you pay for F2 I guess. It does look a lovely lens, one day, one day!
PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 91d
Zoom with your feet isn’t such great advice on the water, is it?
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 91d
I got to go to the Galapagos, and we swam at this one beach and the boobies were diving just like this all around us. Had a couple splash me. Entirely surreal.
dyslexicdainbroner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 91d
With that glass, perfect distance!
1stQ@feddit.org · 2 pts · 91d
Heavily cropped as you can see by the quality.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 91d
Get an extender or two. I have a 2x: it's small, not too expensive, and in decent light it works great!
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 91d
I wouldn't bother, personally. I have the Canon 1.4x and the 2x, and the 2x in particular is worthless. It adds so much aberration to the image that there is no advantage in quality versus just cropping the un-extended image and blowing it up. But above and beyond that the equivalent of three full stops of light loss means that you stand a good chance of not being able to make the shot at all.
So you can basically forget about taking pictures of birds with it around sunrise or sunset, or on cloudy days, or under any kind of tree cover. It's a good thing birds never show up in any of those conditions...
So I gave up on it.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 91d
Huh, what lenses were you using it with?
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 91d
The RF 100-400, and the RF 200-800.