By Jim Zuckerman
I thought my new 500 f/4 IS super telephoto would make bird photography easier. Wrong. It makes it harder. Yes, it allows me to fill the frame more with the subject, but the problem is that the angle of view is so narrow that birds fly in and out of my frame in milliseconds. Autofocus is great, but you have to be able to first find the bird in the viewfinder and then keep it there long enough for the autofocus mechanism to lock-on so you can get a shot. This is definitely easier said than done.
A few days ago I was shooting roseate spoonbills in Tampa Bay, Florida. I had a great guide, James Shadle (http://www.wildflorida.net/tours.aspx), who got me very close to scores of spoonbills and many other species. My goal was to get birds in flight, and I was happy with the frame-filling ability with the 500mm telephoto, but my shooting ratio of good to bad shots wasn't impressive. That's to be expected when photographing wildlife, but birds are especially challenging. I was shooting from James' small boat (ideal for shooting from a low angle when the birds are wading), and the rocking and rolling didn't help. In spite of the challenges, I was pretty happy with the images I was able to get. With practice, working with a long lens gets easier, but it takes a single-minded ability to focus on what you're doing.
I took all the pictures at 400 ISO, since the light wasn't very bright, and all my shutter speeds were 1/800th of a second or faster. My favorite image of the day, the first one below, was taken at 1/1600th.
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