I was doing an early morning walk at Steamboat Lake S.P. here in Colorado and heard a sandhill crane calling close by. Lets just say I was in the right place at the right time when a hiker with two dogs came up the trail towards me.
MFD is pretty good and you can't find much better in a prime lens. 2m is pretty standard for a 300/2.8. Nikon 120-300 is 2m. Canon RF100-300 is 1.8m. Canon EF 300II was 2m. If we look at something like the Z400/4.5 we jump out to 2.5m. 400DOII was 3.3m.
I think the MFD is excellent for most subjects. Were those swallows within MFD? The 2nd to last is OOF but the last is slightly better focused (although not sharp) so I don't really know if MFD was the problem?? Looks like focus just latched onto the bird's right wing...not that it was within MFD.
MFD is pretty good and you can't find much better in a prime lens. 2m is pretty standard for a 300/2.8. Nikon 120-300 is 2m. Canon RF100-300 is 1.8m. Canon EF 300II was 2m. If we look at something like the Z400/4.5 we jump out to 2.5m. 400DOII was 3.3m.
I think the MFD is excellent for most subjects. Were those swallows within MFD? The 2nd to last is OOF but the last is slightly better focused (although not sharp) so I don't really know if MFD was the problem?? Looks like focus just latched onto the bird's right wing...not that it was within MFD....Show more →
Could be unrelated to MFD but I did find that the focus becomes a little erratic when birds get really close with the 200-600 while I never experienced that with the 100-400.
The birds were feeding on bugs I disturbed from the scrub around me so were often snapping up bugs just a few inches from my head. I noticed them doing this while I was walking and so I sat down - to better acquire them when they were low over the ground, and because most of the bugs were just a foot or two above the ground so better chance of getting a frame of one of them catching a bug - and shook the bushes to flush out the bugs. Worked a treat - I'll take a video of me shooting next time if they are still behaving the same way. I think a lot of fledglings around as we head towards summer so hopefully they will be around for a few more days.
For something completely different, this is a very capable sports photography lens as I have experienced over the last couple of days shooting WTA1000 tennis tournament in Cincinnati, OH,
Few sample shots:
?s=eyJpIjo1NDk2MTM5NzUyNCwiZSI6MTc2NDg3NzgyMCwicyI6IjIwYTc4OGIzMDg5NDNjZDVkNjM0YTZmYjc3NTdkN2JmMjY2Y2I2M2IiLCJ2IjoxfQ">Mustela nivalis by Andrew Nik, on Flickr
