Super sharp 55mm vs 70-300mm

Could an admin edit the title to read "Super sharp 55mm vs 70-300mm" please. Thanks

I took some shots of a juvenile house sparrow today and it threw up an interesting comparison.
It allowed me to get quite close and as the 55mm was on my D7100 I grabbed that and took a few shots before it started hopping further away.I swapped for my 70-300mm and took some shots with that at 250mm f/11 where it performs well. In the end I was at a fairly similar distance from the bird with both lenses but the 55mm required heavy cropping. Here are the results below.

First up the 70-300mm uncropped with my normal editing.


Second is the cropped 55mm with almost the same editing (less saturation added as it renders colour much better). Shot at f/5.6 I think.


Third shot shows how much of the frame the sparrow took up originally.


The 70-300mm shot is better but I'm amazed at how close they are considering how much cropping was done. This has demonstrated to me the difference between a sharp prime and average zoom. The sooner I get a 300mm f/4 prime the better.

I also think this demonstrates the effect of focal length on the depth of field and ability to get blurred backgrounds. Even at f/11 250mm gives a much better background compared to f/5.6 at 55mm .

Re: Super sharp 55mm croppeddistance with both lenses vs 70-300mm

Somehow part of the text when I was writing jumped into the title and I didn't notice until posted. Could an admin edit it to read "Super sharp 55mm vs 70-300mm" please. Thanks

Re: Super sharp 55mm croppeddistance with both lenses vs 70-300mm

I know i have arrived at the 300mm for a different reason to you,though while waiting and using the bridge camera i am noticing some thing,i am actually getting more involved with my subjects,with the 600mm it was a case of stand on the walk way take the picture and move on,now ime in the bushes getting scratched to pieces but getting closer to the subject and enjoying it.
With the 300 and 1.4 i think i will go back to the 1.3 in camera crop i used it a lot with the Sigma 120-400.

Re: Super sharp 55mm croppeddistance with both lenses vs 70-300mm

mikew said:

I know i have arrived at the 300mm for a different reason to you,though while waiting and using the bridge camera i am noticing some thing,i am actually getting more involved with my subjects,with the 600mm it was a case of stand on the walk way take the picture and move on,now ime in the bushes getting scratched to pieces but getting closer to the subject and enjoying it.
With the 300 and 1.4 i think i will go back to the 1.3 in camera crop i used it a lot with the Sigma 120-400.

Click to expand...

I do enjoy the challenge of having to get really close to my subjects. I've grown up in the countryside shooting guns rather than cameras so be stealthy comes quite naturally to me. The frustration comes when I visit bird hides and everything is just that bit too far and there's nothing I can do about it. A local hide has a regular Kingfisher but even the closest perch is too far for me. I've seen some cracking shots of it taken at 600mm. At the moment I'm shooting at 250mm so 420mm will be a big improvement.

p.s. again if an admin is reading this could you please edit the title, its really bugging me!

Re: Super sharp 55mm croppeddistance with both lenses vs 70-300mm

Try A call for a mod to change the title @Marcel