Sometimes you just need to realize equipment will not help
As some of you may know, I have been eyeing a large telephoto for quite some time. I have long agonized when I will finally purchase my large telephoto and which one will I buy. Will I buy the more portable 500mm F4 or the longer but heavier 600mm F4? Perhaps I will go all out and spring for the 800mm 5.6, or perhaps I will go the sports route and get the 400mm 2.8? I have spent a great deal of time debating this and bugging others about it.
This weekend, though, I decided to do something a bit different. Given a home I had to photograph in Monroe, I decided to take a trip to Ben Hierland’s Wildlife Park. I took along my 100-400 and my 7D and used my monopod for stabilization. I’ve had my 7D for a good month now, but this was the first time I had actually used it for wildlife. The idea was that the crop factor should give me a good idea what magnification I truly needed and which lens would work the best for me.
I must say I was completely shocked at what the answer turned out to be.
Over the period of the day, I came to realize two very painful things.
First, I know almost nothing about photographing wildlife other than insects. I spent a great portion of my time there traipsing around and proceeded to scare away a great number of very interesting looking birds. Heck, even an 800mm would not have helped me. I need to learn some serious technique.
The shot above is one of the few shots I did not delete. I should have deleted it along with every other shot from the trip, but I felt sorry for myself.
The second thing I realized is that the 7D really sucks for low light. I had already been aware of this but this was the first time where I was forced to truly see it. To date I had mainly used the 7D during the day and hadn’t really been forced to go above ISO 400 for anything I truly cared about. The extra stop of a 500 or a 600 will not help here. With my 5D2, I feel fully confident in shooting at ISO 3200. Beyond that the shot may look interesting on FlickR – but commercially will be unusable. With the 7D, I would not go above ISO 400.
The simple fact is that when it comes to taking early light photos of birds and other wildlife, the 7D will not cut it for me. At some time before I truly get into wildlife photography I will need to look into a 1D Mark IV.
However, to be honest the real limitation here is my abilities as a wildlife photographer. A 1D4 will just help with the low light solution. It will not help me learn how to get close to many of these birds and many other techniques of wildlife photography. To learn those, the best way for me to improve is to keep using the 7D with the 100-400 and hope for good light.
The result of this entire escapade is I concluded that I am not yet ready for a large telephoto. I remembered back to how I started in macro. The MP-E 65 was not my first macro lens. I started out with the Canon 500D diopter and used it for a year – slowly improving my macro techniques. After some time I hit a wall with the 500D. I knew I needed more magnification and after a great deal of research I concluded (correctly) that the MP-E 65 paired with the MT-24EX was the answer to my problems.
For that reason I am now learning towards investing the money originally aimed for a large telephoto into more macro equipment. I haven’t yet come to an exact conclusion on what I will purchase, but I will certainly move towards taking more tripod based macros as today pretty much everything is hand held. However, given my experience with shooting macros I am fully confident I will make the right choice when I do purchase something.
Sometimes, you just need to take a step back and realize that better equipment will not help you. The real difference maker in photography is technique. It is certainly true that sometimes equipment will allow you to do something that is otherwise not possible, but unless you’re fully able to use that equipment it still will not make a difference.
That is the case with me and a large telephoto right now. I will need to spend some time practicing and studying before I can truly say that I am limited by not having a large telephoto lens.
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Tags: equipment, lens, photography, technique, telephoto, wildlife