Wildlife photography on a budget

[darinwc]

Don Bryant: "Also FWIW, the bar is set so high now (and has been for decades) for nature/wild life imagery that the weekend photographer will be hard pressed to produce or make photographs that rival the best professional work."

I think you hit the nail on the head there. A pro can spend the money (and time) to follow lions around in africa for a month.
I can only spend $200 on a sub-standard lens and an hour in the park trying to catch the deer.

 

[darinwc]

If you already have a good spotting scope, it may be possible to use it as a lens. There are many models that can use a T-mount.

I looked at a bunch of scopes on ebay but it seemed they were all about f/8 or slower. Also it was hard to know what brands were good, they all looked like cheap plastic.

 

[Anscojohn]

What are peoples thoughts on teleconvertors ??

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Teleconverters work. Buy the best you can afford. For a longish lens "on the cheap" the 300 mm 4.5 Tair telephoto with the Russian Fotosniper outfit is a remarkable good image maker. It is a M42, but a simple adapter will allow you to mount it on your telextender. In such a configuration, the spring-loaded aperture must be stopped down by the user hitting a lever under the lens.