Bird Watching Telephoto Lenses

- Do you see anything? I asked my wife.
- No.

My wife and I were taking a leasurly walk in the small park we have just outside our city. We like having nice long walks in summer in this quiet park. We pack a little lunch and we follow the trails in the woods. I would say we are on those trails for about 2 or 3 hours every week-end.

I always make sure to bring along my digital camera. The problem is,  it is a small compact one and does not have many features on it. We did not mind that much. But lately, my wife and I discovered a new passion. Bird Watching.

We are both newly retired. We noticed that we were taking more walks in the park then ever before due to our free time.

Doing so, we naturally discovered bird watching. It was easy to incorporated this new hobby in our lazy routine. There are many birds flying around where we follow the trails. The city has built little bird houses for them along the trail in the park. So now we can see a lot more birds while taking our walks.

The nice thing also is that in winter time the birds will be more visible due to the simple facts that they will be looking for food. All to our enjoyment.

But we had a bit of frustration lately when trying to take pictures of those fast little birds. The small digital camera does not have a zoom. So my wife and I decided to head to the bird watching store that we have discovered in our city. We didn't even know that we had such a store! The owner of the bird watching store is an older fellow and very patient at explaining the products we would need for a great bird watching experience.

The last visit we had was a turning point in our bird watching hobby. I told him that it was hard for us to see and take pictures of those tiny fast flying birds. He simply answered:

- You simply need an important addition to your bird watching equipment my friend.
- Which is? I asked curiously.
- Bird watching telephoto lenses, he simply answered.
- What do you mean by a bird watching telephoto?
- I simply mean that you could add to your digital camera a good telephoto lens so you could take great close up pictures of the birds. Even if they are way up in the trees.
- Gee that is a great idea! how come I never thought of that?

Bird watching stores owners are here to help by giving you good advices my friend, he said softly with a grin on his face. It happens that I have some great telephoto lenses on sale this week, it is you lucky day.

- You are the man! Show me these photo lenses and explain to me the benefits of each ones. I want to know everything so next time my wife and I are out there, I won't have any trouble getting great pictures of those fantastic little birds.

We spent about an hour in the bird watching store. The owner patiently explained all the features of each and every photo lenses. I did not know that there could be such difference in quality and prices.

So here we are, back at our best bird watching spot.

- Here! Over there on top of the tree... said my wife trying not to yell and scare the birds away.
- Oh great ! Look at these way up.

I had my bird watching telephoto lens on my camera. I was ready. For about the next 30 minutes, I became trigger happy, taking lots of pictures of all kinds of birds. Some I saw for the first time. Certainly because of my new lens.

You should see the amazing photos that we took that day. We were so proud that we showed our best ones to the bird watching store owner. He took 3 of them and posted them on his website. How about that!.

Now, we never ever go out watching birds without our camera equipment and most of all without our telephoto lenses. Yes you read lenses in plural because we have 2 lenses now. One for the longer range and one for close ups. Hey we do not smoke or drink, so we dont feel bad about spending some money on this amazing hobby that is bird watching.