The Last Lens I May Ever Need To Buy

GAS attack #2

The next pang of GAS for this lens happened late March of this year. Through March I’d taken some pretty special photos of robins, nuthatches, blue tits and so on (/march-2022-bird-gallery/), as well as an assortment of squirrels (/march-2022-squirrel-gallery/), all photographed very close up with my 105mm macro lens. I was beginning to develop an interest in wildlife and could even name some of the birds I was photographing.

Sheryl had shown me a new location to photograph wild birds, where a hide had been built, and I’d been testing out the location with some success. Though I was using my 70-300mm, still the results were quite pleasing to my eye. Not shareable but, aside from the shortcomings of the lens, not terrible shots.

Heron
Greylag goose
Heron

Glenn also came to try out the new location with his Sigma 150-600mm. While my interest has been principally macro and landscape photography, Glenn’s focus has always been wildlife.

Glenn with his Sigma 150-600mm mounted on his D800

While in the hide, a red kite flew in and landed behind some reeds, mostly out of sight. After a good few minutes, when it eventually took off, I took this shot:-

I thought the kite had caught a fish, but once I got home and downloaded my images from the day, I realised that the kite had actually nabbed a frog! I realised the photo I’d caught had content which was eminently shareable but the image itself was absolutely deficient. Although Glenn didn’t catch this particular moment, the images he caught that day with the same camera but with the 150-600mm were so much better, I was certain that my shot of the kite would have been epic if I’d had the same lens as Glenn. But alas, I still couldn’t afford this lens.