>I'd often be using a couple of 25mm tubes on the 1200/5.6 . . . I'd
love to have it.
>Small birds at 15-20 feet, waterfowl at about 70 feet and large birds
like eagles and >herons out to 120 feet. It would be very useful.
Those sound like very tight shots. Difficult to locate with a 1200mm
lens, difficult to track and impossible to include much environment at
all.
If my math is correct a 1200mm lens at 15-20 feet covers a field of 4 by
6 inches at 15 feet and 5 by 7 inches at 20 feet (rounding off). Most
small birds range in size from 4 to 6 inches. I would think a bird that
small would be hard to frame in a 4 by 6 or 5 by 7 field.
At 70 feet a 1200mm lens covers 17 by 25 inches, again pretty tight for
waterfowl that average about 20 inches in size (excluding geese).
At 120 feet a 1200mm lens covers 29 by 43 inches, maybe night herons but
not Great Blues or other large herons.
And with any of these birds you are not going to get wing extensions.
No! At any price, I'll pass on the 1200mm lens. Too heavy, too tight
and no IS. I like my light (I never thought I'd say that) 500mm IS with
1.4X and 2X. I choose it over the 600 because I save over 3 pounds in
weight. consider this. In the last 2 weeks alone I have carried the
500 along a Gitzo 1548 tripod with Wimberley Head at least 20 miles in
local wild life areas. If I had the 1200, it would have stayed home.
Happy New Year,
Art
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