Best zoom lens for bird/wildlife photography? Nikon D300

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Coxy914

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Alistair
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I have a Nikon D300 and am looking to buy a decent zoom lens for mainly photographing birds/wildlife.
Outside my office daily I have up to 8 buzzards at anyone time flying around and we often have woodpeckers, heron's etc to view at during the day and plenty of opportunities to take some excellent pics but at the moment, my current zoom lens was basically a kit lens that came with my old D80 a few years ago and is not up to the task so every day is an opportunity missed.
I spent 3 hours on Thursday looking and listening to the buzzards and watching them grappling above the office!

Looking to spend around £1000 (less if possible!)

any suggestions welcome, especially if they come with pictures taken with said lens/camera combo.
 
At 70--200mm vr but you may struggle with birds at distance or the 300mm AF-S F4 one of the unsung hero's of the Nikon range and razor sharp, both take a 1.4x converter well.
 
Sigma 100-300 EX f4 & Sigma 1.4x ex tc is mentioned many a time for wildlife...
 
You will need range and that really means 400mm and up ... so for your budget I'd go Sigma 150-500mm OS, or wait a short while and go for the new Sigma 50-500mm OS. The OS will help with handholding and likely give you a higher keeper ratio than with non-OS or non-VR lenses. The D300 handles noise well of you find you need to up the ISO to get the shutter speed for action/flight shots. A wider DOF will help too, more leeway on your focus, so f8/0 should be about right.
 
for birds and wildlife around your budget I'd be looking at the sigma 50-500 or 150-500, a 100-300 or 70-200 isn't going to cut the mustard even with a 1.4x converter on it, you need as much length as you can get your hands on (ooh err missus)
 
I've both.... Used it for virtually everything & not just for wildlife if I was honest... Used it on a few Nikon bodies D60, D90 & now my D300s..
 
Coxy914 said:
I've look at this on the bay of thieves, but was wondering if anyone on here has the same lens and what are their thoughts on it?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SIGMA-100-300...sFilters_JN?hash=item27b1245142#ht_1135wt_999
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It's an outstanding l;ens that I used on Canon, mainly with a 1.4x, but it only really gives consistently good results on a tripod IMO. It is a big, heavy lens without OS. I think it's now looking over-priced new, but if you can bag one second hand for around £450, plus a 1.4x then you may like it. I just think you'll lose shots because if the difficulty hand-holding, but you could be lucky and super-steady.

Coxy914 said:
without sounding like a twit, is there much advantage on the VR over the OS lenses?
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Not at the price you're looking at IMO. The current OS lenses are 4 stop and that's about as good as it gets. The Nikon AF tends to be better IMO.
 
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