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We've had a number of Kookaburra's adopt our backyard lately (waiting for worms in our lawn and gardens).

They seem quite content to sit patiently on our swing or trampoline waiting for their meals to make an appearance.

It was a nice overcast early morning with soft even light so my daughters wanted me to take a few shots - now I don't confess to be a brider by any stretch but I fitted the Sigma 50-500 to the D600 and took a few frames of this fellow - I stayed on our deck looking out and he watched me quite intently but I get the feeling he would have let me get a lot closer - maybe next time.

These were shot wide open (f/6.3) between 380 and 500mm and I traded ISO for a fast shutter speed since it wasn't all that bright and I'm really happy with how clean the images are - the middle was shot at ISO 2000

Great stuff....love the details in the feathers...how close were you?

Wide open???? F6.3 ?? Russian optics??

Good pics despite the handicap!

Matt. K wrote:Wide open???? F6.3 ?? Russian optics??

Being a Stigma they may as well be Russian optics.....but yes unfortunately the 3rd party manufacturers do seem to like sneaking in f/6.3 lenses

aim54x wrote:Great stuff....love the details in the feathers...how close were you?

I started at about 5m on a monopod and ended up handheld about 2-3m away

Matt. K wrote:Wide open???? F6.3 ?? Russian optics?? Good pics despite the handicap!

Not quite - but a lot of "affordable" 500mm lenses will be f6.3 or slower - I'm more than willing for someone to give me their $8000 500/4 tho if they must

aim54x wrote:Being a Stigma they may as well be Russian optics.....but yes unfortunately the 3rd party manufacturers do seem to like sneaking in f/6.3 lenses

Aw come on - it's not anywhere near that bad

They also do some trickery with the lens to allow "normal" camera's to still AF with lenses slower than f/5.6 - they still report the correct aperture in the EXIF so I'm not sure what they do. My D7000 (which technically only supports AF with lenses f/5.6 or faster) had no problems with this lens (AF was snappy and accurate) - my D600 (which can AF at f/8) also fine.

Remorhaz wrote:

aim54x wrote:Being a Stigma they may as well be Russian optics.....but yes unfortunately the 3rd party manufacturers do seem to like sneaking in f/6.3 lenses

Aw come on - it's not anywhere near that bad

They also do some trickery with the lens to allow "normal" camera's to still AF with lenses slower than f/5.6 - they still report the correct aperture in the EXIF so I'm not sure what they do. My D7000 (which technically only supports AF with lenses f/5.6 or faster) had no problems with this lens (AF was snappy and accurate) - my D600 (which can AF at f/8) also fine.

My experience with Russian optics (Helios 50mm f/2 and Zenitar 16mm f/2. indicates that they are usually pretty damn good....save for QC issues...not unlike Stigma lenses.

As for "trickery" to enable AF on cameras.....what Nikon/Canon/Sony/Pentax and co specify is the minimum aperture that AF will perform optimally...not a hard lock out. A lot of lens + teleconverter combinations are hard programmed to disable AF in cameras (hence taping certain contacts will rectify the situation in many cases).

aim54x wrote:As for "trickery" to enable AF on cameras.....what Nikon/Canon/Sony/Pentax and co specify is the minimum aperture that AF will perform optimally...not a hard lock out. A lot of lens + teleconverter combinations are hard programmed to disable AF in cameras (hence taping certain contacts will rectify the situation in many cases).

Ahh that explains it - thanks Cam - my D7000 had no issues AFing with this lens so there's obviously some leeway in the camera bodies