Thursday, 4 November 2010

A Successful Sparrowhawk

I glanced out of a house window this morning to see a male sparrowhawk on the lawn plucking a small bird. It stayed for several minutes before flying off with its prey held in its talons. I see a sparrowhawk in the garden several times a week but its rare to see it actually be successful in its hunting.

I did manage to get a photo - but please bear in mind this was taken through glass, at a distance of about 25/30 feet, with a 14-42 mm lens with flash and has been heavily cropped so its a very poor record shot!!




The rubbishy photo above has reminded me of a decision I need to make soon (my birthday and Christmas are rapidly approaching!!) concerning an addition to my photographic equipment. I really would like to be able to take some photos of birds and experiment with macro photography but my camera an olmpus e-420 digital slr does not have image stabilisation. I am, therefore trying to decide whether its worth spending several hundred pounds on an olympus 70 -300 mm zoom or possibly an 18-180 mm zoom or would lack of IS make these lens a waste of time. Alternatively, I could forget the zoom lens for now and buy a macro lens for insect, moth and butterfly photography.

I have also been looking at cameras such as the Panasonic Lumic FZ-45 or Fujifilm Finepix HS10 which seem to offer really good zoom lens and macro mode down to 1 cm. Would I be better buying one of these for possibly less money than just one olympus lens?

Decisions! Decisions! Any comments would be gratefully accepted.
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6 comments:

  1. The Quacks of Life5 November 2010 at 08:01

    tough call.

    I do think you'll find some form of stabilisation useful. the problem is Olympus doesn#t make lens with stabilisation.

    for any longish lens I'd like stabilsiation unless you can get shutter speeds of 1/500 and above.

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  2. Ragged Robin5 November 2010 at 13:51

    Thanks so much for the advice re: stabilisation,Pete. As you say, its a tough call. I'll spend a few more weeks doing research, reading reviews and checking out prices, I think.

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  3. Anonymous5 November 2010 at 18:15

    I use Finepix (S5700 & S8100) both of which have macro mode of 1cm. Although the latter`s telephoto result in very grainy photos. So i only use the macro on that one for the tiny micro moths.

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  4. Ragged Robin5 November 2010 at 22:54

    Thanks very much for that information, Dean. The close up photos of birds and insects you take are really brilliant and I would be over the moon to take images like that. Must admit I like the Fuji Finepix cameras - we have a really old version the S304. The zoom and macro aren't very good on as its so old but it does take nice pictures.

    Its going to be a hard decision!

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  5. The Quacks of Life6 November 2010 at 06:01

    as dean says the superzooms do well with macro. the panny fz30/fz50 did well as i remember. and seen some good shots with fuji

    buy the best you can i'd say. compromise and regret it. easy tho to say with someone elses money!!

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  6. Ragged Robin6 November 2010 at 20:14

    Thanks again Pete. The more I look into it the harder the decision. I will let you know what I eventually decide!

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