Living with a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens in the wild.

Whether I like it or not, I have made a conscious educated choice the day I decided to by my 100-400mm zoom, I have made my bed and I have to live with it. But how well am I living with it?

After 11 days and some 3500 photos done with my 2 lenses, the other being a Canon 24-70mm f/2.4 L, I thought I’d report on the experience.

First if you are going to use a zoom lens for wildlife a few setting are going to be required, either put your camera on sport or set it to centre auto focus, ISO 400/800, it’s highest f-stop (4.5 to 5.6 in this case) and in continuous shooting, this is important as most wildlife will not wait for you to setup your camera or to have the perfect frame. Most wildlife photographers end up cropping their photos to re-frame anyways. I admit that though I knew about all this the day I got to the park I was so excited I forgot to do the settings… It cost me a lot of bad and unusable photos.

Next, what of the Image Stabilizer? I tried both with and without to be perfectly honest as long as you are getting a speed above 1/250 of a second leave it on, just remember that IS does not compensate for the subjects movement, it only compensates for camera shake. So, if your are like me and forget to change your settings, movement blur of the subject will be your punishment, see leopard’s paws and legs bellow? 

The IS was on, the camera told me the the photo could be taken but at ISO100, 1/100 of a second, f/4.5 I got motion blur, so the IS was a problem in this case as it allowed me to take a photograph that did not represent what I wanted. I subsequently raised the ISO to 400 and the results were quiet different. This in flight Ground Hornbill was taken with far less light the IS was on with the settings at ISO400, 1/640 of a second, f/9.0 and has very little unwanted movement blur.

So if you follow some simple principals it is possible to catch wildlife action without too much grief.

What really amazed me about the lens was the image quality and focusing speed, my Sigma never game me those qualities. The drawback, the 1.3kg added to the extended body, it can get tiring at times but a bean bag or window mount solves that problem.

Finally, the big question is whether I can live with the lens or if I wasted my money, I can assure you that I did not waste a cent, though I had to get accustomed to the lens’ character I am very impressed with the results. look at he hippo head bellow and I could never had shot this photograph of a crocodile suddenly turning away from a hippo at a rather high speed and at a distance without it, the quality of the photographs speaks for itself. My only regret… I would love to have the Canon EF 400mm f2.8 L II IS USM but the price is rather prohibitive though f/2.8 would be handy.

Focal 400mm, ISO 100, 1/400, f/7.1

Focal 400mm, ISO 100, 1/400, f/7.1

Related posts:

1. Choosing a lens to suit wildlife photography.
2. Choosing a lens to suit indoor sports and wildlife photography.
3. Zoom lens, what’s that and what does it do?
4. Canon 24-70mm f/2.4 L – First impressions.
5. Photo and Film Expo, Johannesburg.

Tags: Lenses, Photography