For all of you who run with Canon bodies and are into wildlife photography, you might want to look at the new EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens. I've had a little over 6 weeks with the new lens and I'm really impressed with it.

I generally steer away from extreme range (100-400) zoom lenses, but this lens has made me a believer that ultra sharp focus is possible. It achieves focus extremely quick, it is very quiet, and best of all surprisingly light. Canon's image stabilization allows quick, offhand shooting without any blur and I shoot 95% of my pictures without a tripod.

With the T5i body, sharp focusing is the rule and not the exception. No struggling to achieve ultra fine focusing. It has exceeded my expectations and worth every penny.

That is good to hear. I bought and sold the first version lens because it wasn't sharper than my 70-200 F2.8 IS with 2X extender. I had high hopes for it that never panned out.

Maybe version 2 will do it.

Jeremy

That has been a common complaint with some of their lenses. I was really sensitive to that when starting out with this lens. So far I would say that Canon corrected the problem.

Mine arrives this week!

I have the 100-400 canon lens also with the is, I used it last week to take pictures of some antelope. May be doing something wrong as I thought it should have made them look closer. Was a bit disappointed with it. I have the t2i camera, may need to upgrade the camera to get the pictures I am looking for. Will try again to take some more pictures soon!

quote:

Originally posted by OkieNewton:
I have the 100-400 canon lens also with the is, I used it last week to take pictures of some antelope. May be doing something wrong as I thought it should have made them look closer. Was a bit disappointed with it. I have the t2i camera, may need to upgrade the camera to get the pictures I am looking for. Will try again to take some more pictures soon!

Antelope at long distance are very small subjects, so you may need lenses that are longer than 400mm. That said, you can set your camera so that the focus point is in the middle; place this center focus point on the subject, and there is a greater chance that the camera will focus on it instead of something else in the frame.

That said, the light must be good enough to enable the camera to use a shutter speed that is high enough to reduce blur. For small subjects at a distance, what you want to do is to crop the photo (zoom and cut) when editing the photo on the computer. But if the subject is not sharp, then there is not much you can do.

This is a crop of a grouse that was around 50 feet from the camera. Used a 400mm lens, and high ISO because it was raining and getting dark. I had to zoom-in and then trim the photo to bring the grouse closer in the photo:


This rabbit was perhaps 150 feet away when I took the photo with a 400mm lens, but the light was not very good (had to use 400 ISO):


And this is a crop of the same photo:


Keep in mind that the IS switch is turned on when the lens is not on a tripod. You will have to practice a lot with the new lens and camera's focus points to get the most out of it.

On moving subjects such as wildlife, I always set the camera to AI Servo, middle focus point, burst mode, and ISO high enough to keep the shutter speeds high. I usually shoot on Av (aperture priority).

If the subject is close enough to fill most of the frame, then I sometimes move the primary focus point to the head of the animal, or to the area that I want the sharpest (usually the eyes).

Thanks Ray, Don't know what ISO means but wifey did understand the crop part of your post. Made a huge difference after she put it on the camera vs me looking at the picture of the viewfinder on the camera.
Okie

quote:

Originally posted by OkieNewton:
Thanks Ray, Don't know what ISO means but wifey did understand the crop part of your post. Made a huge difference after she put it on the camera vs me looking at the picture of the viewfinder on the camera.
Okie

High ISO speeds is what you need to set to camera when the light is not very good, specially when using the 100-400mm lens you mentioned, or my 400mm prime. The apertures of these two lenses aren't very wide.

If it's sunny out and you are taking pictures of deer or pronghorn,for example, you can open the lens as far as it goes and keep the ISO around 200. When using the camera on Av mode, you control the lens aperture with the dial by the shutter release. Whenever you rotate this dial, you notice how the lens aperture changes, and as it changes, so does the shutter speed. These numbers are displayed in the viewfinder as you press the shutter release to focus the lens.

Since deer or pronghorn are moving around, you want a shutter speed that can freeze the movement. It means that as you watch through the eyepiece and notice the lens aperture/shutter speed, you want a shutter speed that is at least over 250 (higher is even better).

The higher shutter speeds will help produce sharp images, which in turn will allow you to zoom-in and cut the photo (crop).

If the subject are birds in flight, then you want even higher shutter speeds, because they move a lot faster than deer.