Canon t4i test drives L glass at the zoo

dzba wrote:

I had a day to remember at the Denver zoo, last Saturday. A local camera retailer had what was billed as a test drive at the zoo. You did have to pay the regular zoo addmission, but the test drive part was completely free. I'm a doubting Thomas, and I felt there was a "catch" ? I'm happy to report there weren't any hidden surprizes, or agenda. They had Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic cameras and lenses to check out and use at 1 hr duration intervals. They also had Tamron lenses available to check out, too.Please keep in mind that this is my only time using anything other than my own lenses. You didn't know what was available until you asked. I was able to check out 3 different lenses, and also put my t4i on their really BIG Canon glass. for short times. They rotated their 600, 800 primes, and also had 200-400 with the built in 1.4 teleconver. I only saw this lense at the Bighorn sheep area. The rest of the time they rotated both the 600 and 800 primes. They set these lenses up on their own tripods which were mounted on the lenses' tripod collar to their tripod head. At least you can get some kind of idea what the results looks like. In hindsight I should have changed the apperatures more. The vendor's help were very kind, and allowed me to use a lense for several minutes, depending on how many were waiting to try it out for themselves.

There's a typo mistake I made on the Shutter speed. I should have read: 1/360 instead.          F-8, ISO 800.  FL was 560 mm with the 1.4 teleconverter engaged.

only chance I had to try the Canon 200-400 L with built in 1.4 teleconverter. This ram didn't move the whole time my camera was on this lense. Several other photographers wanted to try this lense, so I stepped aside to let others use it. The ram was roughly 70 yards away from me. They also had the 800 mm setup, but when I tried it was too strong and chopped off portions of the ram's head. I didn't snap a pic. I now wished I had, to see what that looked like.

Taken with 600 mm L prime, ss 1/1450, f8, ISO 400

This guy was maybe 50 yards away.

another 600 L prime lense image, ss 1/1025, f 8, iso 400

This was the farthest away giraffe maybe 100 yards away.

800 mm L prime, ss 1/724 sec, f8, iso 800 distance was 75 yards ?

I'm not a "cat" person, but afte viewing my day's efforts I learned I had more images of the cheetahs, than any other subject. The vendor's gear checkout area was nearby, so I had to pass the cheetahs to return each lense I'd checked out. I couldn't resist stopping each time. Yes, I was a few minutes late each time returning the lense because I couldn't just walk by and not stop. Me, unable to resist a cat ? I'd have never thought that, before the day passed by.

All the above images are full frame, no crops here ! I shot in RAW format all day, and have converted to jpeg, reduced file size for posting purposes.

I still can't believe how much detail is lost by doing that, compared to what the original is.

You'll have to trust me on that. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I'll see how the response is with these. I have others to share, if the interest is there.

Thanks for viewing, and comments are welcome, Mike