There are quite a few wildlife photography vlogs that I like to watch on youtube, however there are also a few posting on YouTube telling you that they will show you how to better your images then whip out £16,000 of gear.

Graham

Hi I am about 4hrs drive near Alicante and was in Nerja last year for holidays,a beautiful place.

Thanks Vic will do.

Graham

Thanks again for the great advice. I have been out today and seem to have got to grips using AV , using f8 for closer shots and f11 for the more distant stuff while adjusting the iso to get a higher shutter speed. Thanks Derek for the info on the clamps I will definitely look into them. I have also looked into DA 300 f4 and 1.4 converter David and wished I had gone for them when the DA 300 was around £ f650 mark. I think the lens af could do with a bit of camera lens correction on the longer distance shots which I am looking into.

Once again thanks everyone for the fantastic info.

Graham

Hi Rob there is no actual on/off button on the lens.

Graham

Wow brilliant advice everyone thanks very much.I have a hide clamp attached to my powerchair seat and a monopod with a manfroto 393 head and a bit of a heath robinson set up which attaches it to the chair seat back, to try and eliminate as much movement as possible. I have always had the SR switched on so will try it with it switched off. You are right about the Bigma needing good light cos it does hunt a lot if its gloomy. Unfortunately the weather today and the forecast for the next few days isn`t that good on the north east coast but when it picks up I will definitely be back out using all the info you have given me.

Thanks again and much appreciated
Graham

Thanks for the replies. I think I should get back to basics and stop worrying about the more complicated stuff, It's probably frustration because I can't get as close as others and stuck to either hides or the van which is why I I tend to use 420mm so much and found the long distance shots to be sharper but keep forgetting to change f stop for closer in. Do you suggest AV or TAV as the best mode?.

Thanks again
Graham

Last night I was browsing YouTube and came across an american video by a professional bird photographer. I have a K5ii and a 50-500 Bigma and have found the best way to get some half decent shots is to use AV f13 at around 420mm which because of mobilty issues I use 95% of the time ( iether in my wheelchair or from my van) Whilst watching the video I paid what I thought was great attention to the part about exposure. The first part mentioned getting as far to the right of the histogram as possible without touching the end to stop getting " blinkies ".the next part was about using manual mode,use no higher ISO than 800 and if you got " blinkies " then use the shutter speed or the aperture to get rid of them. Well today I went out in my van and tried all of the above with no success whatsoever and reluctantly changed back to my normal but not necessarily best settings. One thing that I did notice from this video was the gear he had was upwards of £20,000 to £30,000 plus of cameras and f2.8 to f4 lenses, and just about all of his amazing photo`s were of large birds ie storks,herons ,white eagles etc and not many small little ones that don`t stay still for more than 1 second. Could someone point me in the direction of some literature that explains things in more laymans terms which I could understand or am I wasting my time because my equipment is not complex enough to try those settings.

Graham

Thanks very much for the information,much appreciated.

Graham

Just talked myself around to buy a DA 300 f4 and the price has gone back up😡.I am in a wheelchair and have a monopod and hide clamp ensemble attached to the chair whilst using my K5 ii and Bigma setup,bit Heath Robinson but works. Is the 300 f4 ok to use handheld, I know it is lighter than the Bigma but by how much?

Graham