My wife and I were out birding last weekend. Way up in the boondocks we encountered a couple doing the same thing. He was using Leika binoculars, she was using a Digital Rebel XTi with an EF 100-400mm L lens. She had the camera slung over one shoulder and hanging down with the lens fully extended and banging against her leg, bushes, branches, and even rocks as she climbed up the trail.
At a rest area further up, we got to talking. She didn't know what kind of camera or lens she had, her husband got it for her. He said it was a Canon (he didn't know the model until he looked), and it was a lens the salesman said was good for birding (true), also a Canon. To him, it was a "big telephoto" lens.
They said they had it about a month, but really didn't care for it because the pictures were often blurry. When I asked about how they use it, they demonstrated: completely handheld, freestanding and unbraced, and without using IS. The camera was always set to the Green Box.
The Green Box was the automatic mode the salesman showed them. They didn't know what the other settings did. No, they didn't read the manual. After all, the camera was automatic. The salesman said so.
They knew nothing of IS (apparently the saleman never mentioned it). They never turned it on. I showed them what IS does. I think their pictures may improve somewhat. (Assuming the dangling, banging lens will last long enough.)
Go figure! Made me want to cry! $2000 worth of camera treated (and used) like it was a $50 P&S.
