IMALlama

A9II w/ Tamron 150-500 @ 500mm + crop

I may have gone a bit overboard. This is a mix of some beans, cucumbers, mini-cantaloupes, butternut squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, and tromboncino

They do turn (mostly) green when you coo them, but the kids still think they're super interesting, which is a win.

Like last time, use the comments to indicate what you think!

Pros:

• Sharp
• Nice construction
• Effective VR/OIS
• Fast and accurate AF with good tracking. I've used it for a mix of birds, bugs, and youth sports. It's never failed to disappoint
• It's not white and collapses somewhat small for a longish FF lens. I like to believe the lens didn't stand out that badly when I use it to shoot youth sports. At least I had multiple parents tell me they appreciated the photos. The hood adds a decent amount of visual mass and it's probably not needed 95% of the time
• Decent pseudo macro, but only at the wide end (1:3.1 aka 0.32x)
• 500mm is 25% more reach than 400mm and is enough for my needs. I'm on e-mount and this lens combo is faster than Sony's 100-400 with a teleconverter
• Good price to performance ratio
• The lens has a focal length lock that uses a clutch like mechanism to lock the lens at any focal length. It seems a bit gimmicky, but I find it useful
• My copy appears fairly well centered, so yay

Cons:

• Stiff zoom action and somewhat front heavy when fully zoomed. There's no manual focusing this lens when it's fully zoomed unless you're using a monopod or tripod
• It's a bit heavy, but is on par for this focal length on a FF lens. If you only need 400mm, get a 400mm lens to save some heft. I use this lens exclusively hand held, but I'm also reasonably fit. I have sat on the ground and used a knee as a makeshift monopod at times though
• Somewhat slow aperture, but this also on par for the focal length. I only use this lens outdoors, so it's never been an issue. As far as consumer lenses go, there's not much faster out there at this focal length
• If you need a long lens you're going to need something longer than 500mm. There's obviously more reach here than a 400mm lens, but it's not that much more. This isn't a real con about this lens, just know what focal length you need and go from there
• No teleconverters on e-mount

Bottom line:

• If this focal length is your jam, this could be your lens
• If you don't need the reach, get something lighter and more compact
• If you don't mind walking around with a massive lens and you're on e-mount, Sony's 200-600 zoom action is really hard to beat

Vote in the comments! As a bonus, it appears to eat nectar.

Especially because they're not shy

One more pic:

I've been interested in photographing bees recently. Rather than buy a macro lens, I spent $32 on a 10mm and 16mm Meike extension tube. Photos are with an A9II + Sigma 35mm f/2, which normally offers a 0.18x magnification. All four are taken as close as the lens will focus. I'm very happy with image quality, especially given that this lens doesn't have a super flat focal plane at its minimum focal distance.

For anyone who tries an extension tube for their first time: you won't be able to focus very far in the distance (beyond about 1 foot in my case). Be ready to get up close and personal.

When I planned these beds I spaced them far enough apart to get my lawn tractor in-between them, but getting between them and the fence involved my weed whacker. As anyone with a fence has found out, maintaining the grass at the base of a fence is a pain.

I'm 3/4 of the way done with the edging. It's 10" tall with something like 6" or 7" of it buried. It does a good job of keeping grass out of our other beds, so I'm sure it will do a good job here. The downside is the most effective way of installing it is to trench first, put the edging in, and then refill the trench. If you try to use one of those big pizza peel looking things to make a narrow slide the will usually get wavy due to variation in trench depth.

I mowed to basically ground height between the beds, weed whacked around the beds, and put in a layer of that thick paper builders will use to protect flooring below the mulch. Some areas for cardboard instead, but we just didn't have enough cardboard to cover it all. Hopefully it will be enough to kill the grass and hopefully that results in less grass appearing in my raised beds.