EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

[EllerySoifer]

Just acquired an EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens.  Is there anyone in this Canon community that can offer any dos or don'ts about this lens.  Any information would be helpful.  Thanks.

[cicopo]

I just used mine on Sunday (I took all 3 of my push / pull lenses) after being asked to photograph drone racing which was a new venue for me. After some testing I determined AF was of no use so I decided to focus on a zone, turn the AF off AND lock the lens to a fixed focal length with the friction ring. Worked perfectly. No worries about lens creep causing OOF shots.  

[marcosphoto]

Very strange, either your interpretation of the lenses performance is off due to conditions or there is something wrong with the lens.  I absolutely love my example of the lens, and sometimes I swear it is able to take sharper images than my 24-105 f4L.  Approaching 300mm and up it gets really hard to hand hold due to obvious reasons, maybe you've got some shake going on.  I also find the tripod ring almost useless IMO, it seems to bounce around a lot with my 5d3.

[DEACo]

I really appreciate all the comments. What I’ve learned — I’m new at this game of longer lenses — is how critical it is to keep the equipment rock steady. A mosquito landing on the lens as the shutter is released will cause you to hit delete. I need to buy a monopod.

Another point you guys have helped me with is aperture. I was shooting wide open, which gave me no dof breathing room. My problem, now, is what to do? I need fast shutter speeds (trying to freeze a baseball), and low enough ISO to produce decent enlargements: 8x10, 11x14.

I probably need a $10,000 lens...

[Waddizzle]

One trick to hand holding a long lens, which works well with primes, is to have your right hand on the camera body, and your left hand near the far end of the lens, instead of near the camera mount.

You can get a steadier grip by increasing the distance between your hands.  One hand on the body, and one on or near the lens hood.

[JA_199]

That lens should do great at freezing the action at a baseball game (unless it's a night game or you're shooting in dark shadow areas). Did you say earlier you're using the 'sport' setting on the camera? I've gotten very good results with that lens on an 80d shooting manual, with AI Servo autofocus, center focus point selected, shutter speeds in the 1/2000 - 1/4000 range (depending on the action I'm trying to freeze and the available light), aperture at f8 (and sometimes wide open if it's cloudy or the athletes are in shadow), ISO on auto. I'll adjust the shutter speed if I notice ISO creeping up above 1600 - images above that are noticeably noisier, which often can be corrected in post but still aren't as sharp as images taken with lower ISO.  

[Waddizzle]

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@JA_199 wrote:

That lens should do great at freezing the action at a baseball game (unless it's a night game or you're shooting in dark shadow areas). Did you say earlier you're using the 'sport' setting on the camera? I've gotten very good results with that lens on an 80d shooting manual, with AI Servo autofocus, center focus point selected, shutter speeds in the 1/2000 - 1/4000 range (depending on the action I'm trying to freeze and the available light), aperture at f8 (and sometimes wide open if it's cloudy or the athletes are in shadow), ISO on auto. I'll adjust the shutter speed if I notice ISO creeping up above 1600 - images above that are noticeably noisier, which often can be corrected in post but still aren't as sharp as images taken with lower ISO.  

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The AF system in the 80D is quite capable of action photography, most especially when you enable AF assist points.   You want all of the AF points enabled, or just a group of points.  But, you can let camera select the initial AF point, or you can direct the camera to always begin tracking with your selected AF point, like the center AF point.  If it is set right, you can see multiple AF points light up as a subject moves through the angle of view.

I frequently shoot in Manual with Auto ISO, too.  The 80D has very good noise performance, when compared to other APS-C sensor camera bodies.  Of course, how much is acceptable noise is a matter of personal opinion.  If you are pixel peeping, you can begin to see noise creeping in above ISO 1600.  I would still shoot at 3200, though.  The tighter the shot, the more noticeable the noise.  So, when ISO starts to hit 3200 and 6400, I do not shoot very tight closeups.