Field Herping Lenses...

[Pruddock]

What are yall's favorite lenses for field herping? I use a vivitar 70-210mm telephoto zoom on my nikon and an 28-90mm canon lens on my canon. Just wanted to know what ya'll use when you go field herping...

[Nanci]

This is a point-and-shoot Casio Exilim 10mp.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/nlevake/Zee03_07057cr800.jpg

I have a fancy Olympus with all kinds of lenses- it never leaves the house.

Nanci

[Menhir]

It heavily depends on what you are searching for in the field:

When I'm just walking around, I try to have a tele-zoom lens with me, currently, I'm using a 100-400 Canon lens. Although it fails in bad weather and a too near distance (maybe a snake or something directly in front of your feet), I can easily switch from smaller reptiles that may easily abscond to big animals or birds.
If we are looking especially for Vipers, I mostly have my 100mm macro on the cam.
If I'm exploring a new habitate, I use a 18-55 lens, so that I can easily take some shots of the nature and good places.

[Pruddock]

See, what I really would like to get (if i had the money) is a nice macro lens for good close ups. Right now my favorite for what I have when I'm looking specifically for snakes is my Canon 28-90 with a UV filter on it.

[Menhir]

If you also like to take close-up of venomous snakes, I would recommend at leat an 100mm Macro. An UV-Filter is useless for digital cameras, cause the sensor does not care about UV-light - so all you do is decrease the quality. There are better filters e.g. protection filters to protect your front lens.

[Pruddock]

I use 35mm SLR...I'm not rich enough to have a digital lol

[Menhir]

Either way, a 100mm Macro would be fine for you. There are several "cheap" ones out there like the SIGMA or TAMRON (90mm) or relativly older ones that you can find at ebay. Imho, if you use a common 35mm and since you may have time to manually focus, get some older Macro lens and safe money.

[Pruddock]

Menhir, would this be a decent lens for the price?

http://listings.ebay.com/_W0QQa10244ZQ2d24QQa14Z41858QQa25563Z20677QQa41840 Z25480QQa41842Z41863QQa42078Z41847QQalistZa25563Q2 ca41840Q2ca14Q2ca41842Q2ca42078Q2ca10244QQcatrefZC 6QQcoactionZcompareQQcoentrypageZsearchQQcopagenum Z1QQfromZR2QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQgcsZ1 826QQpf_queryZQQpfidZ2595QQpfmodeZ1QQreqtypeZ2QQsa catZQ2d100QQsaprchiZQQsaprcloZQQsatitleZQQsbrsrtZd QQsocmdZListingItemList

[Pruddock]

Or this lens for my nikon...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-Zoom-Nikkor-35-105mm-f3-5-4-5-Ais-Exc_W0QQitemZ140107510197QQihZ004QQcategoryZ48556Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem