Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM

RafaPolit wrote in post #11361580
From yesterday, hand-held at 200mm with 1/100th for mix of fill flash and available light. Thanks Al for the fantastic tip on how to achieve perfectly sharp images at way lower shutter speeds than 1 / focal length... 1/320th would have been almost 1 2/3ths of a stop darker! so available light would have been muted.


Rafa.

Hey Mind sharing what that tip was. i dont think i saw it. Thanks Rafa.

Hello, this is as good a place as any for a first post.

Have had my trusty 400d for a few years, but never really did much with it.

Finally got around to getting a decent lens, and went for the 70-200l f/4.

These few snaps were taken on the day i bought it (straight out to the sticks for some English countryside action).

Friends, I'm sorry I didn't post the reference to Al's great link. It should have been included, but since all the credit goes to Al, here's his post with the link:
https://photography-on-the.net …p=11244444&post​count=2632

The technique works for us Left Eyed guys. Also, it requires a tall camera... a T2i with a grip would be excellent. Since I don't have a grip, I rise my shoulder to meet the camera further up (being a trained archer and violinist helps with this ) and, for the 70-200 I elevate my elbow so the lens (the hood) rests in the elbow. This allows for extremely stable shooting. Of course, you lose zooming and manual focusing ability while doing 'the grip'. I have 1/60th shots done at 200mm with this technique, though I'm still at 1/100th for a sure shot.

@mohdfauziahmad, I don't know if there is significant variation on the 70-200s, but my copy, which is third hand used and 5 years old is ridiculously sharp! I'm really happy with the lens.

@Micallef, being one aspiring to shoot some birds, I find your images quite something! Birds in my images are usually a tiny part of the image . Did you use some teleconverter for them, or are they heavily cropped or you just were really close to some of those birds?

@Maybrick, welcome to the forum!

Rafa.

Rafa thanks buddy. I didn't use a tc or crop them much at all. I was just fairly close . Thanks for the advice I might try the technique because I have quite shakey hands lol

Just got mine in the mail today, and its just wow..so fast, sharp, and light... hopefully this rain lets up so i get get some pics with it

Rafa, thanks for linking to the post. Tried it out and it works great. I'm a righty, so it was a bit weird using my left eye. It'll definitely take time to get used to it.

Now to post a couple pics; it is after all a lens sample photo thread. I haven't had too many opportunities to shoot with this lens; I tend to shoot wide. Here are a couple shots I took when I first got the lens.

Obligatory moon shot

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so after itchin to use this new lens right now, instead of waiting for tomorrow, i snapped this of my travel toothbrush sitting on my desk....
iso 1600, 1/250, f4

Andy R wrote in post #11367813
so after itchin to use this new lens right now, instead of waiting for tomorrow, i snapped this of my travel toothbrush sitting on my desk....
iso 1600, 1/250, f4

Damn, nice! Nice to see some people's 50d's don't have noise issues above 400iso lol. Oh well my camera fell off my tripod and now it looks like ill be upgrading to the 7d!

Mookalafalas wrote in post #11279311
I guess that's why it looks so much better than HDR stuff. The more I look at it, the more I think you are in Ansel Adams territory. Congratulations!

Gosh, thanks ever so much for that compliment. Ansel is one of my heroes, not just because of the images he took but what he stood for in the environment movement.

RafaPolit wrote in post #11336544
Oh... I wanted to say: Treat me like a tourist, your images are simply breathtaking! I don't think I have seen such consistent quality and style much around here! But, you are to blame on one aspect: you are not allowing enough people to see your work! Just yesterday I was saying that I don't yet understand how to use the 70-200 on landscapes and went to a thread called:
Lets See Your Telephoto Landscapes... yours were amongst the only two photographers that understand (IMHO) how to do this... you need to share more of these images there so people like me can see the possibilities of telephoto landscapes!!!


Best regards,
Rafa.

Wow Rafa, thank you for those kind words. I just like taking images of my homeland and trying out the techniques of the old masters. I try to post my images as best i can on this forum but i dont want to be a spammer that posts the same work on every single thread possible.
If you want to look at telephoto landscapes then check out work by Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, Michael Frye and Guy Edwardes. Another place to check out is the Singh Ray blog which is full of useful information.

Thanks again,

Andrew.

That toothbrush looks so freaking clean that I feel like brushing my teeth now.

RafaPolit wrote in post #11365143
Friends, I'm sorry I didn't post the reference to Al's great link. It should have been included, but since all the credit goes to Al, here's his post with the link:
https://photography-on-the.net …p=11244444&post​count=2632

The technique works for us Left Eyed guys. Also, it requires a tall camera... a T2i with a grip would be excellent. Since I don't have a grip, I rise my shoulder to meet the camera further up (being a trained archer and violinist helps with this ) and, for the 70-200 I elevate my elbow so the lens (the hood) rests in the elbow. This allows for extremely stable shooting. Of course, you lose zooming and manual focusing ability while doing 'the grip'. I have 1/60th shots done at 200mm with this technique, though I'm still at 1/100th for a sure shot.

@mohdfauziahmad, I don't know if there is significant variation on the 70-200s, but my copy, which is third hand used and 5 years old is ridiculously sharp! I'm really happy with the lens.

@Micallef, being one aspiring to shoot some birds, I find your images quite something! Birds in my images are usually a tiny part of the image . Did you use some teleconverter for them, or are they heavily cropped or you just were really close to some of those birds?

@Maybrick, welcome to the forum!

Rafa.

Sweet thank you, ill have to look at the video when i get home. Thanks

is it worth spending the extra money on the IS version of this lens?

^ Worth it if you're hand holding it somewhere where you don't/can't bring a tripod/monopod, or just walking around. I'm still debating myself if I should get the f4 IS or not, but have tested out all the version, which was the easy part.

Well, this is p. 221 of the Non-IS group and I think only a tiny majority of us regularly uses a tripod for our shots, and I think you'll see a lot of sharp clear photos here.