A7rIII Camera with the 200-600 G OSS Lens

[jilldwr]

I currently own the A7rIII but shoot mainly wildlife and birds in flight with Canon gear. I’d like to get the Sony 200-600 lens and shoot birds in flight with the A7rIII instead. Only thing is that I’ve seen and read some less than glowing reviews of this combination. Does anyone here use the 200-600 on the A7rIII? And how does it perform?

Cheers!

Jilldwr

 

[craig50]

There's also the Sigma 150-600. I have it and really like it. It's cheaper than the Sony and slightly faster.

[XKAES]

What focal lengths do you find yourself using the most?  You might find that a fixed focal length lens will work fine, have a faster maximum aperture, weight a lot less -- and save you a lot of MOO-LA.

And if you are not already familiar with catching birds in flight with a long lens, you might just want to start out with a tele-converter.  It's not particularly easy.

[Pieter]

Your manual focussing skills must be quite exceptional @XKAES but most people rely on quick and accurate autofocus to catch birds in flight. In E-mount land that means your suggestions don't make a lot of sense:

When it comes to autofocussing primes in the 200-600 range, there's only the 400mm f/2.8 (€12000) or the 600mm f/4 (€13500). Not a lot of weight or MOO-LA saved there...

When it comes to teleconverters, trying to get to 400-600mm range, there's really only two options:

70-200 GM + 2× teleconverter (€2500 + €570)

100-400 GM + 1.4x teleconverter (€2700 + €600)

None of these options save weight, cash or give a faster aperture than the Sony 200-600 (€2000). In the end the only viable alternatives - assuming one needs an AF E-mount lens - are the Tamron 150-500 (€1500) or the Sigma 150-600 (€1400).

[XKAES]

I wouldn't say exceptional, but I would say affordable -- I never paid more than $150 for any of my long, lightweight CATS -- 500mm Yashica, 650mm Tokina, 800mm Vivitar, and 1250mm Celestron.  In my experience, most birds in flight are at infinity, so focusing is not a problem. 

If I could afford any of the current crop, I could pay someone to take the pictures.

[Pieter]

38 minutes ago, XKAES said:

 In my experience, most birds in flight are at infinity, so focusing is not a problem.

Sounds like your BiF-photography experience is quite different from mine. I tend to shoot at about 15-20 meters distance with my 70-350mm lens at 350mm f/8 on APS-C (525mm f/11 FF equivalent). Depth of field is only 50 cm in this case. Good luck manually focussing that with any bird flying eratically or towards you.

[XKAES]

And good luck to anyone trying to capture an erratically flying bird in the viewfinder with a long lens at a close distance -- regardless of the focusing system.

[Pieter]

True words, I'm still trying to catch a nicely framed swallow hunting for bugs, to no avail. But I rather put the blame on my poor tracking skills than on equipment letting me down.

[thebeardedgroundsman]

I take my hat off to anyone getting pics of small birds flying erratically. I get the impression that some of these images are got by using high FPS, blasting off in the general direction, then picking out any frames that happen to be caught.

For the larger birds flying high, I understand Xkaes' view point.

I'm no birder, but I've filled my frame with a Red Kite or two using my old A99 and 100-400mm zoom.

I'm getting better results with my recently bought A7Rii and FE 100-400 G lens.

From what I gather, talking to various people, the downside to high res cameras is that the speed of rendering is not fast enough to get a long blast of photos if using the "click and hope" method (NB: There is more skill in this than the nick name suggests.) I've not tried your options, but I reckon it would prove better than the bad reports suggest - just not as good as premium "sports" bodies like the A9 or A1.

I've never shot with Canon so I've got no idea how that gear performs.

[XKAES]

I wouldn't even try to photograph a hummingbird or a flycatcher in motion. 

One approach is to focus on a point where the bird frequents -- a nest, a perch, feeder, a fishing spot on the lake.  Focus on that and wait for the bird to "do the work" when they are flying by.

Edited September 25, 2021 by XKAES