I had the chance to put this combo through its pace at the Breeders’ Cup yesterday at Santa Anita Park (thanks for the VIP ticket, Bobby!). Both performed admirably well just like Zenyatta did . I did both panning at ISO 100 and fairly slow shutter speed(s) to convey the movement and cranked up the ISO to 800 to freeze the action. This setup was fairly compact and focal length-wise just perfect. AF-wise, the 7D didn’t have any problem to keep up with the situation. I had several sequential shots of horses coming closer at an angle and each series seems to be in perfect focus. Since I was hand-holding the setup all the time, I did miss a few panning actions at slower shutter speed. Had the setup been on tripod outfitted with a Wimberley, just like my birding setup, it would have been sweet… But since I was doing this just for fun and didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb among well-dressed folks out there and since the horses stayed on course and predictable, I felt comfortable capturing the action without any support.
Like I mentioned before in another thread, I had this lens previously and it was really a great lens but for some stupid reasons, I sold it. About 10 days ago I bought another copy (UW code) and this one turned out to be another stellar copy. Did Canon tighten up their QC in the last few years or what? Here is a selection of the images...
LCollector wrote:
Hmm, I feel that you need to work on your panning and composition technique... this combo should be able to do way better than what is presented.
Maybe you can give me a pointer or two. Which image do you think I need to work on? All of them ? I like the last one the least but since it was the main race and that's the shot at the finish line, I included that in there.
LCollector wrote:
Hmm, I feel that you need to work on your panning and composition technique... this combo should be able to do way better than what is presented.
Panning while shooting horses in full stride is very difficult...specifically because the axis of movement is going two directions (up+down, forward). The panned shots here look fairly typical from what I've seen.
. I did both panning at ISO 100 and fairly slow shutter speed(s) to convey the movement and cranked up the ISO to 800 to freeze the action. This setup was fairly compact and focal length-wise just perfect. AF-wise, the 7D didn’t have any problem to keep up with the situation. I had several sequential shots of horses coming closer at an angle and each series seems to be in perfect focus. Since I was hand-holding the setup all the time, I did miss a few panning actions at slower shutter speed. Had the setup been on tripod outfitted with a Wimberley, just like my birding setup, it would have been sweet… But since I was doing this just for fun and didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb among well-dressed folks out there and since the horses stayed on course and predictable, I felt comfortable capturing the action without any support.