Canon Lens for Wildlife/Gundog Photography

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barbury

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garry
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Hi, I am new to photography and new to this forum. Please could someone give some advice on what the best lenses would be to use for wildlife and gundog photography.

The camera I have is a canon 50D I have looked at the 100/400 EF lenses.

Grateful for all advice.

Thanks
Barbury
 
It all depends on what sort of wildlife you're after shooting and what budget you've got.
 
Budget wil probably be a deciding factor. Canon make the 100-400, which may well suit your needs. Sigma make some good tele zooms too, and they tend to be far cheaper.
 
Thanks for the reply. My main subject would be gundogs running/jumping retrieving birds. I would also like to photograph wild birds and safari animals.

With regards to budget probably around £2,000 but if it meant me getting something really special then I would just save some more!

Thanks
Barbury
 
Thanks for the reply. My main subject would be gundogs running/jumping retrieving birds. I would also like to photograph wild birds and safari animals.

With regards to budget probably around £2,000 but if it meant me getting something really special then I would just save some more!

Thanks
Barbury
 
£2000 is a nice budget to use that's for sure. While it is something that we could all spend, you clearly need to have a degree of portability and the ability to move around and hand hold?

I would imaging that there are a couple of thoughts on this. Either a tele zoom, such as the Canon 100-400 or one of the Sigma tele zooms. The Canon will set you back about £900 if you bought second hand off this forum. This is generally the most consistently well considered tele zoom, I think it's fair to say.

The other alternative is a long prime lens, such as a 300mm or 400mm. The disadvantage of these is that you are unable to change your focal length if something is too close. The big advantage of these long primes is that they offer better IQ.

If you have a look on the forum for StuartR (Lensforhire) perhaps you could consider renting one to see how you get on with it.

I hope that is useful to you.
 
You need to figure out what your range of shooting distances will be and how tightly you want to frame the dog. e.g. might you be shooting as close as 20' or as far away as 150', or both extremes? Do you want to be able to get tight headshots, the whole dog or a bit of the environment? Once you have those numbers figured out you can use a "Field Of View" calculator to work out what sort of focal length range you need. There is a calculator on this web page, if you scroll down a bit....

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm

Also, what sort of light conditions will you be shooting in? Sunny summer days only, evening or indoors, or gloomy winter days in the rain? What sort of prints do you want to make - how big? How much noise can you afford in the images? Answers to these questions will help determine what sort of aperture you will need in order to achieve suitably high shutter speeds at acceptable ISO settings.

I'm not saying that armed with the answers to thise things I could make a solid recommendation, but without knowing those things I'm not sure anybody can give you the right answer. The 100-400 might indeed be the perfect lens, but then again you might find something like a Sigma 120-300/2.8 would be better, or a Canon 70-200/4 or /2.8. Heck, a 300/2.8 prime might be the best choice.

Without more information we'll all be guessing.
 
Hi Tim
Thanks for your information The answers to some of the questions are:
I would be shooting in all types of weather dull and sunny. I could also be shooting in low light situations and be shooting in all different ranges .
I would like to capture dogs running and jumping both head shots and whole body.
Any advice would be most appreciated
Thanks
Barbury
 
Hi Sara
Thanks for the information on the lens it would seem that every one is recommending this lens.

Thanks once again for your advice.
Barbury
 
Barbury,

Do Tim's field of view calculator suggestion - really, go do it.

Without it you will have no idea at what distances a dog sized object fills the frame - not as far as you think....
 
Drop me a PM if you like, i've done a small amount of this subject.

A 70-200 2.8 IS would be my recommendation.

Whilst the 100-400 is a decent lens in good light and medium distances, its not fast enough at the close end and a lot of the work will be done in less than ideal lighting conditions (assuming your photographing them actually working in the season - not field trials) so 2.8 would be ideal.

A sigma 120-300 2.8 might be a pretty decent call too.

The AF Performance of the body is everything. I really struggle with XXd series bodies, and if your doing driven days you can never decide where the bird will fall, inevitably it will be in the shade or into the sun.

Here is a portrait of a lab from a shoot in December shot with a 70-200

745423752_nSRaa-L-1.jpg


A portrait shot with a Canon 300 2.8 (lovely Bokeh at close range)

674263564_hxdRP-L.jpg


A shot of a mates Springer with a Sigma 100-300 F4

454950815_QS7Z9-L-1.jpg


Sigma 100-300 F4 again

437179129_Ei7fZ-L-3.jpg
 
70-200 is ample for working gundogs.

More importantly, get to know the keepers,the beaters, the drives and the shoots,where the birds fly,where the guns shoot them,where they land and where the best place to stand/kneel is.

Shooting photography is a doddle really............:)
 
The head shot of the Springer is fantastic Nick. Great colour contrast, detail.
Also looks like a cracking hound.
 
My vote would also go for the 70-200 F2.8 IS - when shooting in season F5.6 just won;t cut it without ramping the ISO up. Plus the AF will the f2.8 would be better too. Buy a used one and you will have enough budget left over for the 300mm F4 IS and a 1.4x which means your longer range is covered too.
 
I think you'd find a prime rather tricky to use for this IMHO.

I use my 300 prime a lot - but for motorsport, where I frame up my shot and wait for cars/bikes to appear in it.

For stuff that can happen anywhere in front of you it has to be a zoom in my book. If the 70-200 is not long enough, then the Sigma 120-300 2.8 is the beast for the job. Although obviously once the action gets close, you'll find it too long at the wide end.

Nice work there Nick BTW - I have a soft spot for spannels :D
 
barbury said:
Hi Tim
Thanks for your information The answers to some of the questions are:
I would be shooting in all types of weather dull and sunny. I could also be shooting in low light situations and be shooting in all different ranges .
I would like to capture dogs running and jumping both head shots and whole body.
Any advice would be most appreciated
Thanks
Barbury
Click to expand...

OK, so let's assume for a headshot you want a field of view of 1' and for a running dog with a bit of space around you want a field of view of 10'. Now, since you haven't specified shooting distance I'll assume a range between 20' and 150'.

At a distance of 20', in order to achieve an FOV of 1' you'd need a focal length of 450mm.

At a distance of 20', in order to achieve an FOV of 10' you'd need a focal length of 45mm.

At a distance of 150', in order to achieve an FOV of 1' you'd need a focal length of 3370mm. (not easy to find or afford, and you probably won't be expecting headshots at 150', fortunately)

At a distance of 150', in order to achieve an FOV of 10' you'd need a focal length of 337mm.

So it looks like a focal length range of around 50-450mm would serve you well. Probably the closest is the Sigma 50-500, but that is a slow lens, with an aperture of only f/6.3 at the long end. By the sounds of things you'd be much better off with an f/2.8 lens, with a constant max aperture as well. But you won't get such a lens to cover anywhere near the zoom range my calculations suggest you might need. Probably the best solution would be a 70-200/2.8 plus a 1.4X teleconverter for the longer shots, or a Sigma 120-300/2.8, which would be better for the longer shots, but you won't be able to get a wide FOV close up.

I also have no idea of the focusing performance of the Sigma lens, and whether it is fast and accurate, since you will have quick and demanding subjects to track, so you'll have to turn elsewhere for the answers to that. I would think on balance that a longer lens will serve you better. You'll get better subject isolation, from the narrower FOV, and probably end up needing to crop less, and can probably avoid using a teleconverter completely. So much really depends on your distance from the dogs. Shooting at greater distance will actually make your job easier, and simplify things for the AF too.

If you were to get the Sigma 120-300 then at 20' you would have an FOV of 3'9 x 2'6, which will give you a fairly tight frame on a dog running towards you, but not so tight as to be a problem. It would be very snug for a dog that was running across your FOV and which you were panning. Maybe too snug. Of course, if you are further back than 20' then the problem reduces. It really is important to know your shooting distances in order to pick the optimum lens solution. You've got a decent budget, so it's definitely worth putting in the effort to pick the right lens. The Canon 100-400 might be ideal in focal length, but that f/5.6 aperture could be a worry in poor light, with focusing being less assured and needing a good old dose of ISO to keep the shutter speed up.

If you can narrow down the range of distance you might even find that a fast prime would suit better, like a 135/2L. But really, since I don't know your shooting distances, I don't know what would be best for you. I wish you luck. :)
 
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