Jeff Donovan
New member
I rented this lens from Calumet along with the TC-20E teleconverter for a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We did some shooting in the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge and definitely needed the extra length.
The early part of the week was really a learning experience for me. I got some good photos, but not great ones at the refuge, mainly because I'd left the ISO at 100 thinking that 1/500 shutter times were good enough to get sharp images of wildlife. Lesson learned. Later in the week I shot at ISO 320/400 and had much better results which I'll share below.
All told I'd say this lens lives up to its lofty reputation. The autofocus was fast and tracked moving birds with ease and even through a teleconverter the lens was sharp through the whole aperture range.
It might take a year or so, but the penny pinching has begun so I can have one of these beauties all to myself.
I'm not an experts on birds, so unless I'm pretty sure I'm close to the mark I'm not going to identify the birds.
The early part of the week was really a learning experience for me. I got some good photos, but not great ones at the refuge, mainly because I'd left the ISO at 100 thinking that 1/500 shutter times were good enough to get sharp images of wildlife. Lesson learned. Later in the week I shot at ISO 320/400 and had much better results which I'll share below.
All told I'd say this lens lives up to its lofty reputation. The autofocus was fast and tracked moving birds with ease and even through a teleconverter the lens was sharp through the whole aperture range.
It might take a year or so, but the penny pinching has begun so I can have one of these beauties all to myself.
I'm not an experts on birds, so unless I'm pretty sure I'm close to the mark I'm not going to identify the birds.