Which zoon lens for Nikon D5100 for bird closeups? I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon...

uuspirit

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Take a look at the post right after this one, the Snow Geese. These were taken with the Sigma 150-500mm, pretty good bird lens in my opinion.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Well, the next step up might be the Sigma 150-500 - it is only a thousand bucks. If it will work with the 5100 AF system.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

CaptainC wrote:

Well, the next step up might be the Sigma 150-500 - it is only a thousand bucks. If it will work with the 5100 AF system.

Gee, where did I read that before? LOL

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

MT Shooter wrote:

CaptainC wrote:

Well, the next step up might be the Sigma 150-500 - it is only a thousand bucks. If it will work with the 5100 AF system.

Gee, where did I read that before? LOL

'tis your corrupting influence.

MtnMan Loc: ID

uuspirit wrote:

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

I agree with the Sigma 150-500. It is a wonderful lens for birds.

But it is much larger than the 55-300. Also when researching it I found some people had problems with them. It seemed to me they were people that took them into wet environments.

DaveHam Loc: Reading UK

Have you thought about renting for the trip? Give you a chance to evalute before you buy. The Sigma is an option or you could look at the Nikon 200/400 F4 with a 1.7 teleconverter; this will give you 680 mm at F6.8 which can be quite handy at times. The vibration reduction on the Nikon is very good as well, even with the teleconverter mounted. The only problem with the teleconverter, depending on the camera body, autofocus in low light can be slow with a lot of seeking time.

danielle_andrassy Loc: Ontario, Canada

uuspirit wrote:

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

I have to agree with MTShooter and Captain C., the Sigma 150-500 is a fantastic lens.

Teacher Loc: Alabama

I can't imagine any shot in Costa Rica with a blue sky background. You'll probably be looking up into trees in deep shade with sunlight filtering through. This is a tough situation for a slow lens. A good flash might be better investment. Fast, long lenses are very expensive but may be what you need. Sigma or Nikon 70-200 f2.8 could fit the bill.

uuspirit wrote:

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

BigGWells Loc: Olympia, WA

I bought the 150-500 Sigma for my D5100, works great...

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

uuspirit wrote:

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

My 8x30 Canon binoculars are more powerful than my 500mm f4 prime lens by Canon. That's a $7200 lens. You can't compare a lens to binoculars. So even if you had a doubler on your 55-300 for a focal length of 110-600 you'd still not have as much reach as 10 power binocs. Learn to get as close to your subject as possible. Use a tripod with long lenses. Only shoot wildlife in good to great lighting. If wildlife becomes a passion that you can't control, spend $10k on a really good lens and don't mess with the entry level zooms that many of the first time DSLR users go with these days. A good lens costs so much because they let in a lot of light and have a huge aperture for those lower light conditions allowing you to shoot on a worse than just good lighting day.

RDH

At a minimum to take pictures of birds you need a 500 mm lens equivalence. Either the 150 - 500 or your zoom 300 with a tele converter should work well. I am not sure how a flash could help, you are out doors and your subject is not going to be in flash rang as a rule. A 70 - 200 zoom will be useless. People don't realize how small birds are until they try photographing them. Have fun.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

uuspirit wrote:

I recently bought a Nikon D5100 camera and Nikkor 55-300 lens, but I'm very disappointed in the zoom. I'm going to Costa Rica soon and I want to take closeups of every bird, iguana, monkey, etc. that we see so that we can identify it later. But my 10x binoculars are more powerful than this lens. What should I buy? I'll be on a bus tour, so there will be no room for large gear. Thanks.

Yes, get the Sigma 150-500mm and you won't regret it. But also take a shorter focal length lens for humming birds and other close ups. The 55-300mm should complement the Sigma just fine.

Also, take a P&S with you. My wife & I did the zip line there and gave our p&s to one of the guides and he took videos of us. You don't want to take your dslr on the zip line!

Tarzan Loc: Brazil

Well, this is not an answer to your question, but a sugestion: Why not a superzoom, in order of a Canon SX40 or SX50? They will give you a max zoom equivalent to 840mm a/f5.6 or 1200mm a/ f6.5.
I once went in a trip like yours, with a relatively light gear: Lumix G3 (micro 4/3) with a 14-42mm, a 50-200mm and a 100-300mm. I lost many shots that sould have been great ones, by not having the right-for-situation lens attached to the camera.
A guy had, at the same time, an SX40. He took as many as twice shots as I did. Later, we compared image quality. I took my hat to the image stabilisation of the little Canon that translated in a high score of keepers. Compared to my camera's shots,a quality difference in favour of G3 started to show up only when applying heavy cropping. But then, at 1200mm, who needs cropping?
Last but not least: Cost. Half the price of an entry 300 for a DSLR, not including the teleconverter.
Best regards.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

The Sigma 100-300 F4 EX with 1.4X is the cheap way out with relatively small size ( no OS ), otherwise - I recommend 70-200 with 2X - either Sigma or Nikon ( $$ ). All Sigma lenses must be bought with a return priviledge due to sloppy quality control.