Second Lens for Wildlife

[mdavisphoto]

I am moving from Nikon DSLR to Sony mirrorless.  I finally have the A1 and now awaiting the 600mm f/4.  My question is - what would be a good second wildlife lens to carry to complement the 600mm when the wildlife is closer.  Yeah, I know that seems pretty rare, but in the Nikon DSLR world I'd often carry the 70-200mm.....is that also the right lens to carry here, or would the 100-400 or 200-600 be a better complement?

[Pieter]

Unless you're struggling for light and assuming money is no constraint, I think the 100-400 is the most suitable complement:

 - You've already got 600 mm covered in the best possible way;

 - There's a big gap between 70 and 600 mm so the 100-400 covers that pretty well;

 - If you really want the 400-600 mm range, you can use a 1.4× extender on the 100-400 (performance will be slightly below 200-600 withou extender);

 - The Sony 70-200 f/2.8 is pretty good but arguably due for an update;

 - The 100-400 is optically slightly better than the 200-600 and much better than the 70-200 with 2× extender.

I guess the biggest appeal of the 200-600 is the constant size over the zoom range, which makes it very easy to balance on a tripod/gimbal.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Pieter

[thebeardedgroundsman]

Pieter is much better placed than I am to tell you about the quality of lenses, but to add my penny worth, the A1 with it's 50Mp can be switched to APS-C mode ( I believe) which extends the reach of a lens by about 1.5 and the resolution will still be around 33Mp.

Mind you, you can always crop in editing, and with all those pixels to play with, quality should remain more than acceptable unless you're printing murals!

Personally, I would go for the 70-200 f2.8 as my wildlife photography is either "long distance" where I would use your 600 lens, or woodland, dusk or dawn, where the wider aperture is beneficial and the subjects are closer due to the nature of the habitat.

[Pieter]

13 minutes ago, thebeardedgroundsman said:

the A1 with it's 50Mp can be switched to APS-C mode ( I believe) which extends the reach of a lens by about 1.5 and the resolution will still be around 33Mp.

Bear in mind that in order to determine the MP by cropping in, you should divide by crop factor squared: 50 / 1.5^2 = 22 MP. Still plenty for most purposes though.

To work with a 600 mm prime requires a lot of skill in timing and finding your subject, but if you nail it the resulting images will be something special indeed. Personally I prefer a zoom lens for non-stationary wildlife so you can zoom out for subject spotting, then quickly zoom in to get the shot. If you work a lot at 600mm, this might vouch for the 200-600...

As you can see, there's a lot to be said for all the options under your consideration. In the end we can only lay out the pros and cons for each option but I'm sure that, given your exquisite set of gear, you're fully aware of each and every reason why to pick one over the other. Would love to hear about your decision in the choice at hand, and your reasoning behind it.