Birdie action w/new lens for the A6000: FE70-200mm F4

[zackiedawg]

I've been enjoying playing around with a new lens for my A6000 mirrorless camera - I picked up the lovely and sharp FE70-200mm F4 G OSS lens, as I wanted a high quality decent mid-zoom I could use for some light birding when I don't want to lug the heavier DSLR along with the big zooms. The build is fantastic on the lens, it's super-sharp, and it's quite fast, so it really lets you get a true sense of what the A6000's focus tracking ability and speed can do - in fact, I hadn't quite appreciated how good it was until this lens: I used to call the tracking 'almost as good' as an entry DSLR, but now I'm confident this camera continuously focuses and tracks above the level of most entry DSLRs, solidly in the mid-DSLR level!

Anyway, thought I'd share some bird photos, for those who like and care about birds, or anyone wanting to know how the lens performs...enjoy:

Lovely female red-winged blackbird:

Blue-winged teal in flight:

American bittern in flight, in the rain:

Anhinga drying himself off:

Red-bellied woodpecker:

Northern cardinal:

Cattle egret all colored up for mating season, flying in:

Colorful purple gallinule, walking the reeds with those big feet:

Birds this time of year are bringing back sticks to help build their nests...this wood stork decided to bring home a whole tree!:

Great blue heron, with a more reasonable sized stick:

Rare and exotic mutant...the two-headed wood stork:

Cattle egret coming straight at me, straight at me, straight at me...then suddenly a sharp bank to the right!:

 

[gary]

Nice stuff, i sold my entry dslr and got an a6000, along with the sigma 19 and 30, plus i preordered the new 24-240 which shipped two days ago, got it last night, hope to shoot some with it this weekend. Only 6.3 on long end but that should work in modern ballpark lighting. Its fe mount so it mounts on a7ii ff and a6000 makes it 360mm long

 

[zackiedawg]

I'm interested what you find with the 24-240mm lens - I consider picking that one up too - it's not a whole lot more reach than the 210mm and 200mm lenses, but every little bit counts...though for me it would have to be a nice step up in IQ over the 18-200 and 55-210mm lenses to be worth it - because the FE70-200mm is really significantly sharper and crisper than the 55-210mm and 18-200mm lenses - so it is VERY croppable and could easily make up for the extra 40mm of reach it's lacking. If the 24-240mm can be very high quality at 240mm though, then it might be worth it.

 

[gary]

well it seems to be reasonably sharp, these are with the a6000, handheld at f6.3, it was a grey overcast damp long island coastal crappy kind of weather day, i mostly got this lens for ballgames to have the extra reach without the size and weight of the 70-200, until 11:38 pm saturday night this was the universalist church in southold, called in by a patrol unit, coincidentally manned by the orient fire department chief, so the first southold chiefs on the air got a live time enroute size up, which was pretty much, it's fully involved inside, you're going to need more than 1 ladder truck. a friend passed by there about 1 hour before and said he saw/smelled nothing.

once the heat deformed the lead beads on the stained glass windows and the glass fell out, it was all over, the fire got fresh air and took off