New 500 mm f/4.0 - Look Mom, I Caught a Tornado!

Ok, so this past Tuesday my new 500 mm f/4 arrives. Its not brand new from a retailer, but new to me, and purchased last year by a very talented motorsports shooter in LA who upgraded to the 600. Mine is like new, you couldn't tell it from new i.e. new condition, original packing box and stuff that comes with a new lens, but I digress.

So of couse I am outside in the backyard getting ready to do the mandatory "duck" shoot, when lo and behold, much to my chagrin, this big ass British Tornado jet screams over. I live in Tucson, Arizona, and what is a British fighter jet doing here you say, well, we have a big Air Force base here and we get all types of interesting planes here flying around all the time for training, etc. I happen to live in midtown, the base is on the outskirts of town, so the flight path sometimes takes these jets directly over my house, sweeet, and I love it. We get Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, A-10's, just about everything you can think of, including the occasional F-14, and B-52. Its a free airshow 2 or 3 times a week.

So, I am beginning the "duck" shoot with a Classic 1D, you know just a few test shots until I can find a real duck. This jet flys over, and I aim the 500 mm Canon with the 1D hooked on to it, and fire away.

Below is the result. Yikes! Are you freeeeeeeking kidding me!

I knew this lens was good, but these results are absolutely stupid. Hand held, ready aim fire and I don't even have a clue on how to use this thing yet. WOW! PP consisted of running it through LightRoom with auto everything, saving as a 16 bit TIFF, default unsharpmask in CS3, and Fred Miranda's ResizePro CS3 plugin specific for the 1D Classic. That may sound like a lot but it took all of about 10 seconds.

BTW the obligatory "duck" shoot is coming, I got so anal about this, that after the "Tornado" I did test shots with the 1D, 1D Mark IIN, 5D and 30D. Now that I think of it, I am going to hang my little old 300D on it as well. Will post these later.

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Congrats on that

dfindr wrote in post #3662317
Ok, so this past Tuesday my new 500 mm f/4 arrives. Its not brand new from a retailer, but new to me, and purchased last year by a very talented motorsports shooter in LA who upgraded to the 600. Mine is like new, you couldn't tell it from new i.e. new condition, original packing box and stuff that comes with a new lens, but I digress.

So of couse I am outside in the backyard getting ready to do the mandatory "duck" shoot, when lo and behold, much to my chagrin, this big ass British Tornado jet screams over. I live in Tucson, Arizona, and what is a British fighter jet doing here you say, well, we have a big Air Force base here and we get all types of interesting planes here flying around all the time for training, etc. I happen to live in midtown, the base is on the outskirts of town, so the flight path sometimes takes these jets directly over my house, sweeet, and I love it. We get Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, A-10's, just about everything you can think of, including the occasional F-14, and B-52. Its a free airshow 2 or 3 times a week.

So, I am beginning the "duck" shoot with a Classic 1D, you know just a few test shots until I can find a real duck. This jet flys over, and I aim the 500 mm Canon with the 1D hooked on to it, and fire away.

Below is the result. Yikes! Are you freeeeeeeking kidding me!

I knew this lens was good, but these results are absolutely stupid. Hand held, ready aim fire and I don't even have a clue on how to use this thing yet. WOW! PP consisted of running it through LightRoom with auto everything, saving as a 16 bit TIFF, default unsharpmask in CS3, and Fred Miranda's ResizePro CS3 plugin specific for the 1D Classic. That may sound like a lot but it took all of about 10 seconds.

BTW the obligatory "duck" shoot is coming, I got so anal about this, that after the "Tornado" I did test shots with the 1D, 1D Mark IIN, 5D and 30D. Now that I think of it, I am going to hang my little old 300D on it as well. Will post these later.

Heh that is impressive. Of course its British so it would be..
Seriously that is a very good first shot.
Post more when you can.

Reaperman

Echo the congrats. I would think it is a double sided coin, though, having those noisy jets over one's abode.

mark

yes its rather nice
man you get some bright light out there to get that SP at iso 100. envy
Rob.

Darby, will you please stop messing in the woodpile and give us some duck....finally.

1/5000 at ISO 100
Superb action shot. Not often you get shots from underneath with the landing gear out.

You can see some camera shake...


Just kidding.


Awesome shot, framed nicely and everything. Guess that's what experience does for you...