It's easy to get excited about great, close-up flight images. But not as easy to duplicate them. One mistake many photographers make is to zoom in as far as they can right away and desparately try to focus on the bird--often against a mottled background. They would probably be better off just taking a deep breath and making a plan to work their way into the shooting opportunity.

Even more important to excellent bird photography than having the right camera is having the right lens. There is no point in purchasing that dream camera body and crippling yourself with a cheap lens. In the 8 years I've been leading digital photo safaris I've had the chance to use or at least see used just about every likely lens made for Nikon and Canon camera bodies and have plenty of hopefully useful thoughts to share with you: