>>Photography can be expensive. > Not really. Sell all those old third-party and second-tier lenses > you've accumulated over the years and get some real Big Glass.
;-) > There's a mint Pentax FA* 600/4 on Ebay for only $3699. A dirt-cheap > bargain. A bargain, yes. Dirt cheap, no. > You really only need a 600/4 and 1.4x TC for birdies. Well, yes and no. A 600/4 monster is pretty useless for many "birdy" situations. It's great on a tripod for shooting birds that are not moving around much and who will sit still long enough for you to set up, assuming that you can get your tripod set up on suitable ground. (I'm thinking of marsh birds or shore birds, perhaps.) However, the lens is not very portable, and it certainly isn't hand-holdable (I can just about hand-hold an A* 600/5.6 in bright light conditions with 400 ASA film). Even a sturdy monopod would be taxed by a 600/4 cannon (that's with a "double-n" - <g>). If you have to walk very far to get to the birdies you'd better buy an army-surplus caisson to help transport it, but forget it if the terrain is rough. Then, I don't picture using such a lens on pelagic birds from a boat. And, I can't picture traipsing through dense woods to shoot birds in the puckerbrush, and thickets, either. (Good luck to you if a bird lands less than 5 meters - about 16.5 feet - away from you.) Mind you, this is really not any criticism of the design or the optical properties of the F* or FA* 600/4 lenses, but is just a "devil's advocate" rebuttal to the concept that "you really only need a 600/4 and 1.4x TC for birdies". It is probably a great lens for its purposes, but its purposes don't cover a lot of good birding situations. A lot of good bird photography can be done without "a 600/4 and 1.4x TC". Fred
