After spending the first few weeks of its live at the “nursery” it is time for the young leveret to move on and make room for the next generation of hare.

Generally, they do not venture far from the place that they have known as home at first but gradually they will explore further afield.

Here the leveret has found a grassy area to feast on. The evening light has helped to provide some warmth to the scene.

You will see from the field notes that this image was shot with a Sigma 150-600mm f/5.0 – 6.3 Contemporary lens.

A lot of people turn their noses up at 3rd party zoom lenses but not me. I have the option to photograph with a Nikon 600mm f4 or the excellent Nikon 200-400mm f4 lenses however they are both heavy lenses and after a while become very difficult to hand hold.

Hand holding gives you extra freedom as does a zoom of this sort allowing to react to different shooting situations.

When I tell people I use the Sigma 150-600mm they assume I will have gone for the more expensive sports line up Sigma option but no I have not and the reason is simple. Image quality between the Contemporary and Sports lens is broadly similar but the weight difference is not with the Contemporary being significantly lighter.

Also note that this image was shot using a shutter speed of 1/100 sec at 600mm on a Nikon D500 giving a 35mm equivalant of 900mm and no that shutter speed is not a typo.  Using a lower shutter speed allows me drop the iso which will go some way towards compensating for the higher maximum aperture.

This is not always the best choice of lens, I would always favour the f4 lenses when the light is low or a fast shutter speed or fast autofocus is required but lets be honest – that is not always the case.

Don’t be a gear snob and get what is best for you not what makes you think makes you look good. These zoom lenses have improved enormously over the years and provide a fairly cost effective was to get into wildlife photography particularly as the modern cameras allow you push the iso which is some ways compentates for the slower lens.