Marilia Loc: Dallas, TX

You’ll need to be real close using a 200mm...

Marilia Loc: Dallas, TX

You’ll need to be real close with a 200mm ;)

zenagain Loc: Pueblo CO

You have a lot of great advice above.
If interested i have a Tamron 18-400 for sale for $445.00 shipped.

Dave H2

I use a Tamron 18-400 which is available for around $300-350 used. I bought mine from a fellow here on Hog and am well pleased with it. It's my walk around lens on my D7200 and has both autofocus and stabilization.
Good luck.
D

wetreed

The Tamron 18-400 is your best bet. It’s a very reliable lens. Very sharp with great image quality.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

RowdyRay Loc: MN

This right here!! Buy it. Can't go wrong for the money. I have one for when I want to travel lighter than the Sigma 150-600mm sport. Does a fine job for the price.

Winslowe

You may not be too far wrong there. The OP might not need big enlargements, and with the patience and skill to get in close may not need to crop too much. Then, with todays state of the art software and the ability to alter the image pixel by pixel, very acceptable results are possible even with less than top quality lenses.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

BIF photos are pretty hard to do. Good ones anyway. Unless they’re hovering it’s difficult to keep them in your field of view, especially if you’re zoomed way out. Not much room there to work with. I have a D7200 with an 18-200 and most shots were at 70mm when I was trying to capture seagulls that were relatively close. Should have been using burst mode but I got a couple decent ones out of about 60 shits.

oconnortf

I have a d3400 and often some of the kits for the 3000 - 5000 - 7000 series camera bodies were packaged with a AF 70-300mm 4.5-6.3 and an AF 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 - The advantage is that you can often find these lenses quite cheaply - when I started wearing out my d3400 (its still hanging in there) but I found an almost unused d3400 with both lenses - bag charger the works for 300 - and often see them in the 300-400 range - Same with the 5000 series - although a bit more.
I've never used the Tamron lens you noted so not sure how it compares - based on looking looks the f3.8 is a benefit but I don't think its auto focus - and often AF will help you capture moments you would have missed while focusing - especially in lower light or if like me you don't have the best eyes to see getting perfect focus in your view finder.
No matter what, once you get addicted to this and its easy to do. You will always want better glass and better camera bodies heheh.

WDCash Loc: Milford, Delaware, USA

Hi Joe,
I want to encourage you to grab your camera and your longest auto focusing lens and get at it. Bird photography is challenging enough without manual focus.
More reach is great and as you get more and more sucked into photographing birds you will crave more reach, but that does not mean you can't get started with what you have and have a ball. Finding public areas where birds are more used to people helps. Setting up a feeding station and a watering hole also is a big help as it also allows you to kind of control your background.

Visit Steve Perry's website or youtube channel. He has some good material free for the watching that will help. The more you shoot the better you will become.

Some will disagree with me on this but Steve Perry convinced me, lots of sutter speed. Now I start at 1/1000 and go up for from there for birds, assuming the light will allow. Everything about them, even sitting still, it fast.

My Dad shot the attached with the first Canon I bought him, I'll have to look up the exact model but it predated the 2Ti. -Edit a Rebel XS. - (I was clueless about 2hat camera to buy him ) I belie
10.1 mg on a cropped sensor. He shot this hand held with the kit 50 -250 lens it came with. In JPG and probibly with all the auto focus points active. Likely it was set in auto everything as he was just starting out. And at about your age too.

Funny side story. Dad aperently didn't know he had this gem. I found it in his old files after he passed away and cleaned it up, a very little.

Dad chased birds with a camera for the last 12 or 15 years of his life. He never shot with anything longer then a 250 due to the weight of the bigger glass. And he managed to collect over 8500 keepers, all made him happy.

(Download)

haren

Wonderful memory and treasure, beautiful too

Dr J Loc: NE Florida

Very sharp! Nice! 👏🏻

boredAlan2020

If your budget can afford, go for something with up to 4-500mm, either zoom or prime. There are two varieties: less expensive 4-5.6 variable f stop rated lenses and super expensive f4 only through zoom range or f4 or less prime lenses. I would stick with new or used Nikon lenses and avoid the temptation of less expensive other brand lenses. They are not as sharp or as fast with autofocus. Save up your money and shop EBay or Craigslist but be careful with return policies and ability to check lenses for any mold or other internal defects. You can do that by "mowing the lawn" with the lens mounted on your camera body and set on the most wide angle setting. Then point the camera up to the sky or other brightly illuminated monochrome view and using the arrows on the back of the camera run from top left to bottom right, line by line down the viewfinder image. If you encounter any black spots or smudges, it is probably something internal in the lens an either very expensive to clean or not possible. Also make sure you are on manual focus at the nearest focal plane setting.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Thank you for the great advice, which is what I have been doing. With the crappy weather, so far just mallards and geese. I have to doing some online research about where birds are around here (Southwest Chicago suburbs). The weirdest thing is that we have had literally no birds here for the last five years. Anyway, thank you for chiming in. Your dad's shot is exceptional... I guess you inherited it