Building Your Lens Kit For Digital Action

With the autumn migrations and rutting season approaching fast, now is the time to put together a set of lenses to help you capture all the action

By Staff

Labels: Lenses

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Now is an ideal time to upgrade your lenses. Fall wildlife season is here, and it’s also the time of year when you can make some of the best landscapes. Particularly when it comes to action shooting (wildlife and sports), having a kit that includes a supertelephoto, a telephoto zoom and a long-range zoom will give you the tools to get spectacular photos and let you make images you couldn’t get armed with just a supertele. The supertelephoto will bring in the distant animals, the tele-zoom will provide compositional flexibility and the long-range zoom will let you capture environmental portraits that show the animal and its surroundings while also giving you the flexibility to change perspective dramatically with the twist of a barrel.

Supertelephotos
Supertelephoto lenses (200mm and longer for an APS-C-sensor D-SLR, 300mm and longer for a full-frame D-SLR or 35mm camera) let you get “close-ups” of shy wildlife that won’t let you approach closely. Wildlife pros, especially bird specialists, like the pro supertelephotos—300mm ƒ/2.8, 400mm ƒ/2.8, 500mm ƒ/4 and 600mm ƒ/2.8. These offer three major advantages:

Canon EF 800mm ƒ/5.6L IS USM

• They have wide maximum apertures, so you get a bright viewfinder image for easy composing and manual focusing, you get faster shutter speeds for sharper shots of moving subjects, and you can isolate a subject from a busy background due to the extremely limited depth of field with the aperture wide open.

• They autofocus more quickly and accurately than lesser lenses.

• They’re dead-on sharp.

Canon EF 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6L IS USM

On the downside, pro supertelephotos are quite large and heavy, and they’re very costly—the 300mm ƒ/2.8s run $3,000 to over $6,000, and longer lenses go up from there. If you intend to compete full-time with wildlife pros, you need one or more of the pro lenses. They really are that good.

Canon EF 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6L IS USM

(Canon)
Canon’s most popular lenses with wildlife pros include the EF 300mm ƒ/2.8L IS USM, EF 400mm ƒ/2.8L IS USM, EF 400mm ƒ/4 DO IS USM, EF 500mm ƒ/4L IS USM, EF 600mm ƒ/4L IS USM and EF 800mm ƒ/5.6L IS USM supertelephotos, all featuring Canon’s pioneering optical Image Stabilizer. Estimated street prices for these run from around $4,000 to over $10,000.

For those on tighter budgets, good Canon wildlife choices include the EF 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6L IS USM, EF 300mm ƒ/4L IS USM, EF 400mm ƒ/5.6L USM, EF 70-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM and (a bit short for wildlife with full-frame cameras, but good for non-full-frame D-SLRs) EF 70-200mm ƒ/2.8L IS USM and EF 70-200mm ƒ/4L IS USM. These all allow you to prefocus manually without leaving AF mode, very handy when photographing birds in flight.

Canon offers two long-range zooms, the pro EF 28-300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6L IS USM and EF 28-200mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 USM.

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12 Comments

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Phil makes this comment

Friday, 13 November 2009

Anyone who is using an "L" lens this article is pushing probably doesn't need the advice or information. There are tons of less expensive lenses out there including after market lenses that take professional grade photos providing you know how to use a camera. I just read another article on this site where the author was extolling the benefits of a $1000 tripod. Come on people, most of us are not paid Photography professionals and want the best bang for our hard earned buck.
martin makes this comment

Sunday, 20 September 2009

come on guys.... this is not bad for an overview on whats currently out there. if you want a review of a specific lense go to http://www.fredmiranda.com If you can afford a digital slr then you should be willing to spend close to 1000$ for a really good tele lens too... why would you buy a 1000$ or more camera body and then spend 300 bucks on a lens??
Jay makes this comment

Saturday, 19 September 2009

I must live in a different world since the costs of these lenses are truly out of reach for me - given the economy and just plain economics....it is just impossible. It really would be to the benefit of most of us to tell us how to purchase afforadable lenses to achieve similar effects....or at the very least get a job with an expense account to we can buy them! It is time to get real!!!
George makes this comment

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

I think you live in a different world than most of us. Rather than concentrating on super expensive tele lenses that most of us can only dream of, why not list good lenses in an affordable range that most of us can actually purchase without taking on a second mortgage. I, for one, do not have an unlimited expense account I can dip into. Let's get real!!!
garry makes this comment

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

this is a space filler article , isn't it? I actually looked cover to cover for the three lens kit information but I found nothing. Then this rehash online. I just have to comment. This mag has great photos and seems to carry all the reliable distributors on the advertisers list, with a smattering of usefull information thrown in. this article made me wonder if it was written to fill some kind of obligation to a mfg. or worse yet, to just fill a few pages with lens pictures to drool over. how about a head to head gear comparison, best tripod, best raingear, best hiking boots, even best neck strap? C'mon- lets get back to what we subscribed for, or just throw it open for great photographs and the distributor ads section.
Shelagh makes this comment

Thursday, 27 August 2009

I am looking for suggestions for an all around good travel zoom, light weight and decently priced for a Cannon Eos Rebel T1-i. Planning a trip to the Holy Land and a lot of walking is involved so don't want to take anymore than I have to carry. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Keith makes this comment

Monday, 24 August 2009

I came online because I was sure that space limitations forced meaningful content to be left out of the magazine article. Oh well, there isn't even estimated street price, advice on how to actually build a 3-lens kit, or information about performance of individual lenses.
Lisa makes this comment

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

I was also disappointed with the article. It would have been nice to see some actual photos samples taken with each lens.
Les makes this comment

Monday, 17 August 2009

This is old news - rehashed. If you really want to create an interesting article, it would be nice to see cross comparisons from independent lens testers, as well as varied visuals such as (for example) a mountain, medium scene with a tree, and a portrait....allowing people to understand visually why lens A doesn't come close to lens B....and not necessarily because of cost.
Terry makes this comment

Saturday, 08 August 2009

Ron: You can find them on Ebay easily. Also, B&H photo is a firm you can trust for any photo supplies.
Bruce makes this comment

Saturday, 08 August 2009

So tell me something I don't know. This is just a list of all the manufacturers' lenses. Not a very useful article.
Ron makes this comment

Friday, 07 August 2009

Where can I get a used super long cannon EF lens?

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Building Your Lens Kit For Digital Action

With the autumn migrations and rutting season approaching fast, now is the time to put together a set of lenses to help you capture all the action

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