SLR Geek

Zoo, did someone say zoo? Let’s go!

WOW! If there ever was a perfect place for this lens it has to be the zoo. I visited the Phoenix Zoo this last week with both my Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 40D, Canon 100-400 and all I can think of is wow! Where have you been all of my life? With a zoom range of 100 to 400 on the 5D and 160 to 640mm when mounted on my Canon 40D you can’t go wrong. It’s literally like shooting fish in the barrel.

Need a portrait of that Tiger while he’s walking the back wall as far away as he can get? Zoom to 400mm and bang off the shot (See Tiger photo below). Need a wider shot of your group zoom back to 100mm.

Push Pull Zoom:

This may be the most controversial item on the 100-400 description list. And the one thing I thought I wouldn’t like. I was WRONG! By the time you even start to try and zoom with a twist zoom you could already be there with the push pull. Go from 100 to 400 in less then a second with practice. It has this handy friction ring tied to the focus ring that allows you to set just the right amount of friction for every situation. Carrying the lens somewhere lock it into place. Gotta have a shot of that male baboon (see baboon photo below) but he’s running back and forth between the front and back of the display area too close one second and then too far. No problem, loosen the zoom friction.

Image Stabilizer (IS):

The IS allows you to stick your camera in auto ISO and walk through the entire zoo with just one lens and get great closeup shots of everything and know your shot will be razor sharp even on cloudy days and in the shade. Just remember to turn the IS OFF when mounting on a tripod or when making extremely rapid and jerky movements like when shooting birds in flight or you will get the occasional black hole (see black hole photo below of Great Egret taking off). The stabilizer on this lens is an early type and occasionally you can push it beyond it’s limits when following birds especially when that Great Egret suddenly takes off and you jerk the lens up and to the right to follow it. No problem, turn it off and it goes away . And it’s really not a problem since when trying to shoot birds in flight you need 1/1000 shutter speeds and IS doesn’t help then anyway.

Bird in Flight:

Did someone say bird in flight? See an Owl at the local renaissance bird of prey show zoom out to get your aim then zoom in closer getting the shot with the Owls in flight. (see Owl photo below).

Or a Snowy Egret in the wild zoom in or out as required to frame the perfect shot. Something you just can’t to with a 400mm prime! (See Snowy Egret photo below.)

And yes you can get the shot with the 5D Mark II. You won’t get near as many with it as the 40D but when you do get them WOW. The 40D clearly has the edge in frames per second and reach though.

How to look through the window:

Always shoot in raw and carefully take your best shots. Practice is the key. Squeeze off several shots of whatever you are photographing. Chances are one of the shots will be sharper then all the others.

Always process your raw photos using Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) the controls seem cruder then Adobe Raw that comes with Photoshop but WOW do the processed JPEGs look better coming out of DPP. And don’t be afraid to adjust images to your liking the 5D Mark II and this lens respond really well to changes in DPP. Select one, several or all of your images and click on TOOLs and yank the sharpness slider hard over to the right to 8 or 10 if needed. And if that’s not sharp enough click on RGB in the tools menu and slide it sharper as well. Not all photos will need this but you will be shocked how much better a soft photo can look if you do this. Not enough color or contrast? Click back on the RAW tab in tools and slide the Saturation over to 3 or even 4 or what ever makes you happy. Just viewing the images on-line? Try saving them to the size of your monitor screen 17inch for a 17 inch screen etc. and 72dpi only. Of course for printing you will want to make it 200 or even 300 DPI and as big as you need to print for your dimensions.

Pros:

Super Sharp!

Super Versatile!

Great Contrast

The perfect Zoo lens

100-400mm SWEET!

The perfect Air Show lens

The perfect Renaissance Festival lens

Attracts a lot of attention, you will be asked if you are a pro

Image stabilizer lets you get away with crazy like shutter speeds

Sweet Bokeh at subject filling close range and at all ranges on full frame sensor camera

Raw photos respond well to sharpening and contrast / colors in DPP

Cons:

Can be heavy for the uninitiated!

Old style image stabilizer must turn off on tripod

Zoom locking ring is attached to the manual focus ring.

No weather proofing, a strange thing for an out door lens

Attracts a lot of attention, you will be asked if you are a pro

Strange black hole if you take a photo when jerking the lens to track a bird

On cropped sensor cameras only strange variable looking Bokeh at some distances, especially when stopped down and in sunlight with contrasting lines like branches no problem on 5D Mark II.