Andrea

Great capture of the puffin coming in to land!  Puffins are my spark bird - seeing them (along with other cool birds) on a trip to Iceland two years ago is a big part of what inspired me to take up birding.  I wish I had shots as good as this from that trip - my puffin pictures are mostly tiny (far away) and blurry.

I took up birding about two years ago.  At the beginning, I depended on pictures to ID birds.  My birding has improved a lot, but I now take a lot of pleasure in "bird portraits".  I started off with a Canon PowerShot SX720 HS - it has 40x optical zoom, it's super lightweight and portable, and it was fairly affordable (~$300 I think).  I've gotten many great pictures with it (three examples shared here), but it doesn't handle low light well at all and the autofocus is often problematic.  It is nearly impossible to get pictures of birds in flight.  So several months ago I decided to invest in a better camera system.  I opted for a Sony a6400 mirrorless camera because it was lighter and more portable than the DSLRs.  The highest mm lens I have is a 70-350 mm.  I also have a 50-200mm.  The weight of these lenses isn't bad, but I don't get the magnification of my PowerShot.  I looked into teleconverters, but haven't found one that would be compatible with these lenses.  I am feeling rather discouraged because I think I really need 500 mm or higher to get the kinds of photos I want, but I don't want to spend a lot of money or carry the weight of a bigger lens.  I also don't want to invest in another camera system.  Open to suggestions...