Sunday 10 October 2010

Loan of a lens

Good news this week. The insurance company have paid out in full for my little accident in Pembrokeshire, so now I can start looking for my trusty EF400mm f5.6L. In the mean time a friend and I have swapped lenses. He's borrowed my 70-20mm and I've had use of his 100-400mm. This weekend I took it to the local park with me, and I must say that I'm impressed with the results. It is sharper than I would expect a zoom to be, and the IS is very nice. A shame I can't compare the two lenses side by side.

Grey Wagtail
On reflection, however, I think I may stick with my original decision and opt for a straight like for like replacement. The 100-400 has some advantages (closer minimum focusing distance, zoom, image stabilisation) which make it more versatile, but I had five good years out of the prime and it always delivered. It does the things I want it to extremely well. Its fast, reliable auto-focus is just what I need to shoot birds in flight. If I need the closer focusing distance for macro shots I can always use the 70-200.

3 comments:

  1. I must say the lens does create good things, for this is a lovely and precise image!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well this shot is perfect Ian... When it comes to lens, it is sometime difficult to think! I would mainly complain about the AF when I use the extender (most of the time ;-) )... But yeh I guess the 300 and 400mm lens are really nice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really like this one, Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to comment on my blog!