Nikon 70-300 non vr help!

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Chris
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Ive just purchased a nikon 70-300mm non vr lens.

The reason i went for the non vr is because at £48 it was an absolute steal, even if the quality is probably going to be lower than what im aiming for, as a beginner its a good starting point.

So... I know this is soft at 300mm and struggles to perform at low light, but ive seen some examples of pics on flickr that are really excellent. They were of a robin and were very clear, the robin filled up the whole picture, so i imagine he needed to be pretty close up for this, or could it have been cropped?

What kind of distance do i need to be to shoot small birds whilst filling the frame and retaining a good level of sharpness? Also what settings help me to bring to best out of this lens?

Im shooting on a nikon d70, and im a beginner to photography, so any information and advice ll be very appreciated.

Cheer!
 
It's best at f/8 or so and up to around 250mm. As you've found, it gets a bit soft at full stretch.

I would guess that the robin he shot was fairly tame - with a little patience (and the right treats!), you can get them to literally eat out of your hand! I've also shot sparrows with a 50mm (on a D70) and been too close.

The VR is significantly better optically as well as having the VR (which incidentally doesn't help much with bird shots - they [the birds] move so fast and VR cannot deal with subject movement) but also rather more expensive.
 
I have the VR version and although not the same, i can agree with above I am finding F8 + 400/1 shutter + 800 ISO is making things happen for me for those type of pics hand held, you might benefit from a mono pod as well.
 
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