I took the new lens out for a try at the ponds yesterday. I was a little disappointed. No matter how much reach I have, I still seem to be too far away from the animals. I’m going to have to set up a blind and wait a few hours by the lake shore to get the shots I really want to get. I still have to be within 15 feet to get a shot like this one below. That’s far too close under normal circumstances. Birds won’t let you get that close, and if they won’t, nothing else will. I even saw a fox, but the shots I took of him had him at about 1/16th of the frame. Bigger than before, but not remotely big enough to make a good shot.
I guess my next big camera purchase will be a teleconverter. Take that 300 to a 600, only losing 1 stop. Maybe then I can finally get close-ups of birds and other animals. Of course, at that point, it’ll be tripod full time. I’m going to try to find some time this weekend to go out again and try the lens a second time. I’m going to head out to the prairie dog colony and see how I fare out there.
I also discovered this issue with future posts. The folks over on the Google Code site for the crossposter fixed it. I’ve yet to test, but there ya go.
I’m not running 2.5 yet, and that plugin I think only works with 2.5 and higher. I’m going to upgrade… I’m just a little worried about the compatibilities of my plugins.
All of my plugins worked just fine, and MRK only had a problem with the LJ Crossposter. Plus, 2.5 has been out long enough for plugin authors to create fixes. Try it!