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Hello,
I have a friend who is looking for some advice regarding a super telephoto lens. I'm not very familiar with canons line up of lenses, so I thought I would ask here for advice that I could pass onto him.
So, for a bit of background info. My friend is off to...somewhere...cambodia? Somewhere around that region, to go trekking through the rainforest for a couple of weeks tracking gorillas I believe. He wants something which is going to be more capable and produce better results than his Tamron 70 - 300. He currently has a 500d, however he is seriously considering upgrading the body before his expedition to something that will cope with rainforest conditions a little better. Possibly something along the lines of a 50d or 7d for weather sealing, without loosing the extra magnification from a crop sensor.
There are a few requirements he wants to fulfil;
As greater zoom as possible without any great degredation in image quality, possibly utilising teleconverters / extenders.
Durable, as it will be in the rainforest being carried with all the supplies they need such as food, tents etc. It will also need to withstand the climate (high humidity).
Weight, the previous point leads me onto weight. All the expedition members will be carrying their own equipment - such as tents etc, so weight must be considered. Whilst he is quite fit and healthy, he will be expected to trek through a rainforest with this equipment for 8+ hours a day so he cannot go wild with the weight.
Autofocus needs to be capable in varying light conditions, I also don't imagine he will want to be faffing around with lens + TC setups that will cause the effective aperture to be so small as to stop autofocus working. This is what stopped his idea of having a bigma with a TC.
Any lens will ideally need to be black, or have covers readily available - as one of canons good old white lenses will stick out like a sore thumb in the rainforest and could potentially disturb, distract or attract unwanted attention from the wildlife.
------
He has been looking at one of the big sigmas. I think this is a fairly reasonable idea, however the weight could potentially be a little much. He is also considering a canon 100-400mm. Possibly with a 1.4x tc.
I see the logic in both of these lenses, however I have also been leaning towards suggesting a 70-200mm 2.8 to him with a 2x tc incase he is in a situation where he can get fairly close or the lighting is particularly poor. I'm not sure, but I think this suggestion may also be a little bit lighter than a bigma or 100-400mm.
Any suggestions or advice? Or by a sheer stroke of luck, has anyone else done anything similar who could share their experiances?
I have a friend who is looking for some advice regarding a super telephoto lens. I'm not very familiar with canons line up of lenses, so I thought I would ask here for advice that I could pass onto him.
So, for a bit of background info. My friend is off to...somewhere...cambodia? Somewhere around that region, to go trekking through the rainforest for a couple of weeks tracking gorillas I believe. He wants something which is going to be more capable and produce better results than his Tamron 70 - 300. He currently has a 500d, however he is seriously considering upgrading the body before his expedition to something that will cope with rainforest conditions a little better. Possibly something along the lines of a 50d or 7d for weather sealing, without loosing the extra magnification from a crop sensor.
There are a few requirements he wants to fulfil;
As greater zoom as possible without any great degredation in image quality, possibly utilising teleconverters / extenders.
Durable, as it will be in the rainforest being carried with all the supplies they need such as food, tents etc. It will also need to withstand the climate (high humidity).
Weight, the previous point leads me onto weight. All the expedition members will be carrying their own equipment - such as tents etc, so weight must be considered. Whilst he is quite fit and healthy, he will be expected to trek through a rainforest with this equipment for 8+ hours a day so he cannot go wild with the weight.
Autofocus needs to be capable in varying light conditions, I also don't imagine he will want to be faffing around with lens + TC setups that will cause the effective aperture to be so small as to stop autofocus working. This is what stopped his idea of having a bigma with a TC.
Any lens will ideally need to be black, or have covers readily available - as one of canons good old white lenses will stick out like a sore thumb in the rainforest and could potentially disturb, distract or attract unwanted attention from the wildlife.
------
He has been looking at one of the big sigmas. I think this is a fairly reasonable idea, however the weight could potentially be a little much. He is also considering a canon 100-400mm. Possibly with a 1.4x tc.
I see the logic in both of these lenses, however I have also been leaning towards suggesting a 70-200mm 2.8 to him with a 2x tc incase he is in a situation where he can get fairly close or the lighting is particularly poor. I'm not sure, but I think this suggestion may also be a little bit lighter than a bigma or 100-400mm.
Any suggestions or advice? Or by a sheer stroke of luck, has anyone else done anything similar who could share their experiances?
