Canon 400mm 5.6L

M_Six wrote in post #15672573
That was another motivation. I'm going to the F1 race in Austin this November. I might try to get to some ALMS races this summer as well.

I sat in turn 12 in Austin for the F1 race, and the 70-300L/400 5.6L was all I needed for the whole weekend, used the 70-300L about 75% of the time, the 400 5.6L 25%. Of those shots with the 400, a few hundred of them were even with a non-reporting Kenko 1.4TC attached. With the good light it worked well.

Yep, I remember we discussed the Austin F1 in PMs. Can't wait to go next Nov.

I have the Kenko 2x TC. I'm looking forward to trying some moon shots with it. On the 7D it should be 1280mm equivalent, right? 400 x 2 x 1.6

It would have the FOV of 1280 , still be 800mm focal length .

Foggiest wrote in post #15675557
It would have the FOV of 1280 , still be 800mm focal length .

Yes, hence the word "equivalent." An 8x10 of the 7D image would have the same FOV as an 8x10 from a 1280mm on a FF. The image content would be nearly identical except for some very minor (at that range) DoF variations.

What am i missing here? I just ordered the 400, and have shot multiple airshows and motorcycle races with my d90 and 70-300. I always turned off IS when i panned and i thought that was standard practice?

I guess if the prop plane was coming right at you and you weren't swinging the camera IS would be nice.

an i wrong in this thought?

On my 100-400 If panning, I set IS mode to 2, if the cars are coming at me this should be set to 1
Somewhere above 1/1000 no IS should be necessary. But that is just me.

IS is turned off when on my tripod.

cozmo2312 wrote in post #15676037
What am i missing here? I just ordered the 400, and have shot multiple airshows and motorcycle races with my d90 and 70-300. I always turned off IS when i panned and i thought that was standard practice?

I guess if the prop plane was coming right at you and you weren't swinging the camera IS would be nice.

an i wrong in this thought?

mode 2 is for panning...

cozmo2312 wrote in post #15676037
an i wrong in this thought?

Yes, you are.

Mode two is for panning, and in truth you can pan with something that traverses as slowly as an airplane using mode 1. With IS you can hold a 400mm lens at 1/125 and get a pin sharp plane with a great blur disk.

well i guess therein lies my problem. my nikkor 70-300 doesn't have mode 1 and 2. just VR on or off, lol.

cozmo2312 wrote in post #15676632
well i guess therein lies my problem. my nikkor 70-300 doesn't have mode 1 and 2. just VR on or off, lol.

Different story if ur VR has auto-panning system or something close to it.

I use my 400mm for airshows on a 7D, and did just last week.

It's awesome, but yes IS would be nice as it does help with the prop blurs. I still get good results however my keeper rate drops quite a bit as I typically go for 1/200s - 1/320s for nice prop blur.

In most cases I actually don't see the need for longer than 400mm either though. I typically have to throw away quite a lot of images that are soft from the atmospheric conditions which is a real bummer.

phreeky wrote in post #15697736
I use my 400mm for airshows on a 7D, and did just last week.

It's awesome, but yes IS would be nice as it does help with the prop blurs. I still get good results however my keeper rate drops quite a bit as I typically go for 1/200s - 1/320s for nice prop blur.

In most cases I actually don't see the need for longer than 400mm either though. I typically have to throw away quite a lot of images that are soft from the atmospheric conditions which is a real bummer.

The smoke they trail can be a killer. It makes for a great pic when you get the light right, but if it blows towards you or just hangs in the air it kills lots of shots by obscuring the plane.

I've been pretty happy with my new 400 5.6 for shooting BIF. I'm looking forward to trying it at the local airshow this summer. The buffer on the 6D isn't very good, so I'll be using the 7D as well.

M_Six wrote in post #15675195
Yep, I remember we discussed the Austin F1 in PMs. Can't wait to go next Nov.

I have the Kenko 2x TC. I'm looking forward to trying some moon shots with it. On the 7D it should be 1280mm equivalent, right? 400 x 2 x 1.6

That's a good f/l for the moon, though longer wouldn't hurt. On my T1i (500D), an actual 1270mm f/l (my telescope) is just about perfect; the moon fills fills about 2/3 of the frame vertically.