WHAT IS THE BEST FOCAL LENGTH LENS FOR BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY?
While 300mm, 400mm, and even short zoom lenses can be useful at times for bird photography, my recommendation to those seriously interested in making quality photographs of birds is to purchase a lens with a focal length of at least 500mm. For photographing birds in flight, however, handheld 400mm f/5.6 lenses perform superbly. And in places like South Florida where the birds are extraordinarily tame, a 400mm lens may suffice as a general purpose bird lens. Image size is, however, a function of the square of the focal length, so a minimum focal length of 500mm is to be much preferred. With the addition of the matched 1.4X teleconverter, you’ll have an effective focal length of 700mm. You’ll have many more chances to photograph birds than you would with any shorter telephoto lens. At present, the premier bird photography lenses are the 600mm f/4 autofocus lenses; my Canon EF 600mm f/4.0 L lens–often with the EF 1.4X teleconverter in place–is my everyday, workhorse bird photography len
