New Telephoto Lens for wildlife photography

EvilGrin · 31 Jan 2020 at 19:58

Hi all, we have a Canon 500D SLR (APS-C) and currently use a 55-250mm kit lens, looking for an upgrade, would prefer to pay around £300, but would stretch to around £500 at most. Any ideas? We're looking for more range, was looking at the Canon EF 70-300 mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM Lens for £448, but not convinced going from 250 to 300mm max will make enough of a difference. Also looking at Sigma/Tamron 100-400 or 150-500, it's getting more expensive there though.

Also a little concerned that the bigger telephoto lenses may be a bit heavy and unwieldy for her taking quick grab and go pics of the birds in the garden, which probably accounts for 70% of her pics. Any ideas?

EvilGrin · 31 Jan 2020 at 23:46

Would prefer a pretty decent zoom rather than a prime lens, we have bird feeders around 5-10m away and some pretty tall trees 40-50m away I'd estimate. I've been looking at the Sigma/Tamron 100-400mm as that could be enough. I saw a Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM for around £380 in excellent used condition on MBP, no idea if it's good or not though, presuming it's a fairly old lens?

EvilGrin · 1 Feb 2020 at 17:35

Sigma 150-600 definitely looks like a fantastic lens, but it's a good £2-300 out of budget, plus it's 2kg, the wife complains about the kit lens being heavy and it's .45kg! lol. I figure the Tamron 100-400mm is a good in-between at 1.1kg and is basically up to 640mm with the canon crop sensor?

EvilGrin · 16 Feb 2020 at 23:32

So, ended up buying the 100-400mm Tamron as it's the lightest super-telephoto out there (~750g), figured it'd be the best option as the number one thing for her is to have something usable for pick up and grab quick shots in the garden. She's been trying to use it at 400mm and it's just too heavy for her to keep the image stable despite the IS being good on the lens and a monopod wouldn't work for various reasons, I don't think a decent strap will either as it's just her wrists are too weak to support as well as just wanted to grab and shoot.

So unfortunately it's going back and now we're back to looking at 70-300mm lenses, won't give much of a boost over the 55-250 kit lens she currently uses, but figure if she can get something usable at 4-500g as that should be manageable, the extra 50mm will help a bit, but improved optics will be a boost too.