I have spent past several weeeks testing the following three lenses on real life targets, mostly birds in flight (pijuns, mallards) as well as some swimming ducks: 800L and 400 f/2.8 Mk I and Mk II.
Today I have decided to give my poor arms and shoulders a break, thus I went out with 100-400 on 1DsMkII. Shot some pijuns in flight at varying distances, from 20 ft to about 60 ft.
Two types of shot difficulty were done: head-on incoming bird, as well as flyby.
After about one hour of that, I had a tangible confirmation of what I really suspected all along: although 100-400 is no champ when it comes to its AF drive speed, the zoom is in my experience a significantly better BIF lens than 800L.
Therefore, next time when you hear people complaining about 100-400 becoming outdated and all that, pay no heed........I firmly believe 100-400 is still an exceptionally good lens for a variety of photography tasks, and it is not that bad for BIF either.
Here is a sampler of today\'s shots with 1DsMkII + 100-400 @ 400mm and wide open.
Dec 26, 2011 at 05:24 PM
Previous versions of PetKal's message #10194957 « 100-400 better than 800L for BIF »
