p.2 #5 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
I'm sold I'll take one
Cutting edge technology, proving itself to be more than just a zoom lens and having IQ to rival fixed focal length lenses is quite an accomplishment! Good job Canon!
Great imagery here, love the look and feel and enjoyed your commentary
p.2 #6 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
First off, great owl shots with any lens. I too have that lens and I concur with much of what you have stated. I used mine with an external 1.4 TC plus or minus the internal one; shooting up to 784mm. That's what it works out to! The quality is unbelievable! The zooming takes some practice and I agree it would be difficult to do while actively tracking something and hand held. Congrats. Don
p.2 #8 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Tin Man Lee wrote:
Morris,
I want one too, I am just renting it for a few days for a short trip. I won't want to return it but then I will have to sell my kidney.
You guys have had the 200-400 for years! except the built in converter
Tin
Yes we do and I've used it Tin. For me the one stop advantage of the 200-400 is not worth the weight and I do like to be able to pull back to 80. Having 200-560 on a single lens is real nice. I've missed shots adding or removing a TC.
p.2 #11 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
I wonder if the brownish/rust is because they are still juvenile? I have been shooting them perching high up the tree behind branches with bad light/shadows for days. Then one time my friend told me that the owls were more active once the sun set, and said even though its not photographable, its still nice to witness. So I went, and lo and behold, once the sun set, 3 owls started calling each other and came to the open and low---eye level low! And who would have guessed that the ISO performance nowadays is so good that we could actually capture that! Maybe the owl in your area also would come down to eye level during sunset. Good luck.
brimull wrote:
Wonderful images of an interesting bird. Number 1 is a classic. I have spotted a very large Great Horned Owl in my area just recently--more brownish/rust on the underside than the owl in your images. Oh, how I hope to see it in the open from a "reasonable" distance. Must persevere....
p.2 #12 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Hi Don,
I am really glad you felt the same way about the quality of the lens, and also about the difficulty to zoom. Yesterday I was shooting some peregrine falcon, and handholding while zooming on that tight rotating ring ain't easy. But what am I complaining! The zoom really gives a lot more freedom-- after we got some close up portrait of a bird, we can just flip the lever or zoom out to get ready for a flight shot so we don't crop the wings! Before, the bird usually took off right when we were changing teleconverters! I am glad that the external 1.4 works well too. If that's the case, this is the ultimate one lens rules it all!
Tin Man
DonGut wrote:
First off, great owl shots with any lens. I too have that lens and I concur with much of what you have stated. I used mine with an external 1.4 TC plus or minus the internal one; shooting up to 784mm. That's what it works out to! The quality is unbelievable! The zooming takes some practice and I agree it would be difficult to do while actively tracking something and hand held. Congrats. Don
p.2 #13 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
It may be the ultimate combo with the OM-D!
Seriously, the lens still weights a lot, but with the much smaller diameter and the superb performance, one lens can replaces many top primes.
bobbytan wrote:
I want one too ... for my OM-D.
Jun 30, 2013 at 07:06 PM
Herb Houghton Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
p.2 #14 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
These are the best shots I've seen with this lens Tin Man, congrats. love #1
p.2 #16 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Thank you Herb for your very kind words!
It was indeed an amazing experience. I never expected that the owls would fly down to eye level on their own after sunset, and very close to me without any fear. Sometimes it would completely turn away from me for a long time as if I am not present.
I fainted a little bit when the owls landed on that spot where I could see that the golden background was just a few steps away if I moved. And I was the only one there at that time so it felt even more special.
But then, after 2 days of happy photographing, when I went back the 3rd day with my two friends, the owls no longer hunt in that open field but towards the other side which was not photographable. I guess good times never lasts...
Tin Man
Herb Houghton wrote:
These are the best shots I've seen with this lens Tin Man, congrats. love #1
p.2 #17 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Yes indeed. I wasn't joking. It boosted my confidence in BIF. I never thought I could capture the great horned in flight at all, especially in non sky background. Yet this lens plus the 1DX made that happen. I reviewed the flight pic one by one and 80% of them were right on! I was wishing one sharp one in twenty and I would be happy. I was basically shooting in near darkness.
Frogfish wrote:
Simply stunning shots ! That lens seems to be almost a reason to consider Canon
p.2 #18 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Hi Karl,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
I was a bit skeptical on Andy Rouse's review in the beginning even with his fame, because there's just no way in the world a zoom lens can focus as fast as a prime and with good image quality.
So I put the lens into the toughest test, shooting in near darkness, great horned owl perched and in flight in varying background, and the quality amazed me as I could not see a difference compared with the images I got from 600mm II the day before.
Tin Man
Karl Witt wrote:
I'm sold I'll take one
Cutting edge technology, proving itself to be more than just a zoom lens and having IQ to rival fixed focal length lenses is quite an accomplishment! Good job Canon!
Great imagery here, love the look and feel and enjoyed your commentary
p.2 #20 · First hour with Canon 200-400: Review and some Great horned owl pics
Hi TM;
Great shots of a beautiful bird. Wish we had more of them in my neighborhood. Everyone seems to love the images taken with this lens, but your shots highlight the beautiful bokeh that makes this owl stand out. The photos are so sharp that the owl almost looks like it just returned from the taxidermist! I love the BIF shot, I don't have anything quite like it to show here. I was one of the lucky few who got one from the first batch of lenses (#44), you can see some examples here Nashville Zoo. The birds were shot handheld, while the cats were shot on a tripod (at 1/30 - 1/40 sec). Keep up the nice work.
