Over time my desires for Tele Lenses have changed.
My history was EF 35-350 L in the film age.
Afterwards I thought longer and stabilized would be fine so I went for the old Sigma BIGMOS.
Discovering how slow this lens is I tried the 100-400 L.
Wanting something faster I bought a Sigma 120-300 2.8 first generation.
The lessons I learned from that lens were:
For anything with a >=100 mm front lens I do not need a stabilizer as I can't hold it longer than 2 minutes steady, so tripod and gimbal become obligatory.
Then hybris kicked in.
Believing to have learned what there is to learn about handling heavy lenses I gave in to the desire to own a white fast 400mm lens. Because of shallow pockets I went for a 1996 400mm 2.8 L. Knowing only the modern 400 2.8 II lens I failed to recognize that my dinosaur's weight is almost twice as much as the modern lens.
My Cullman Magnesit 525 is now outclassed, the Chinese Copycat Gimbal probably as well.
So here I stand accepting that I'm at the beginning of another learning curve.
So this is a call out to all you astros, birders or sport shooters...
Tell me, teach me what equipment to buy, what techniques to learn, what tricks there are to handle the beast freehand....
I'm sure that there are also others who want or will try to sneak into the world of the big whites and will apreciate your shared wisdom like I will do.
My history was EF 35-350 L in the film age.
Afterwards I thought longer and stabilized would be fine so I went for the old Sigma BIGMOS.
Discovering how slow this lens is I tried the 100-400 L.
Wanting something faster I bought a Sigma 120-300 2.8 first generation.
The lessons I learned from that lens were:
For anything with a >=100 mm front lens I do not need a stabilizer as I can't hold it longer than 2 minutes steady, so tripod and gimbal become obligatory.
Then hybris kicked in.
Believing to have learned what there is to learn about handling heavy lenses I gave in to the desire to own a white fast 400mm lens. Because of shallow pockets I went for a 1996 400mm 2.8 L. Knowing only the modern 400 2.8 II lens I failed to recognize that my dinosaur's weight is almost twice as much as the modern lens.
My Cullman Magnesit 525 is now outclassed, the Chinese Copycat Gimbal probably as well.
So here I stand accepting that I'm at the beginning of another learning curve.
So this is a call out to all you astros, birders or sport shooters...
Tell me, teach me what equipment to buy, what techniques to learn, what tricks there are to handle the beast freehand....
I'm sure that there are also others who want or will try to sneak into the world of the big whites and will apreciate your shared wisdom like I will do.