What lenses do you generally carry with you when you go out to shoot wildlife? This past year I have kept my Tamron 150-600mm lens on my camera the majority of the time and sometimes switch to my Tamron 180mm macro lens. The third lens that I have with me generally is a Canon 50mm lens that I use only occasionally.
While I was going to be away in Vienna, I decided to lend my long lens to a friend. We got into a conversation about the lens when I delivered it to him and I noted that one of th disadvantages of the Tamron zoom was that it is slow, with a maximum aperture of f/6.3 when extended to 600mm.
I contrasted the speed of the long lens with that of my “nifty fifty” that has a maximum aperture of f/1.8. In order to demonstrate how much more light I could get at f/1.8, I had him hold a couple of his guinea pigs and I took some portrait shots handheld in the limited available indoor light with the lens wide open. With a human subject, I would probably have been uncomfortably close, but the guinea pigs didn’t seem to mind.
Finally I took a few shots using the 180mm wide open at f/3.5. It was quite a bit harder to frame the squirming guinea pig at the greater distance, but I got a few shots that look almost like I used studio lighting.
I think my friend learned a bit more about the lenses (and I ended up lending him the 50mm lens too) and I rediscovered the joy of switching lenses and zooming with my feet.
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Mike Powell 