First shots with 100-300mm II

First, a 125mm picture from our porch shot with the 14-140mm II that is on my G7 most of the time in daylight:

ISO 400 f/6.3 1/640th sec, daylight white balance

Shot from my porch because: 1) morning light comes over my house to hit this tree. 2) Porch is about as high as this part of the tree, it's up and the lawn slopes down.

Now 1st shot with the (fairly) new 100-300, at 300mm, ISO 200, 1/400, f/5.6

ISO 200, 300mm, 1/400, f/6.3

So, the first thing I've noticed is that the depth of field is just few inches. I should take another at f/8 and maybe at f/11. I like the blur of the background, but the depth of field is really shallow.

Another at 300mm

It's pretty clear what's in focus, here

And one more: I'm not sure what lit up this flower, just off the left of our porch, but I had to take its picture. At 300mm the lens was reluctant to auto focus on the flower but it could be convinced!

Flower in a a mystery shaft of light. Perhaps 7 or 8 feet away.

All of these were shot hand held. I think in the future I will have to remember how narrow the in focus region is at f/5.6, and use at least f/8. The things that are in focus are sharp enough for me. Hand holding at shutter speed low enough to count on OIS is probably not the best thing to do (for the last shot) but it worked!

All of these are full size, so you can pixel peep, and when you do I strongly expect people will remark about softness at 300mm. These were not sharpened, just the default in ACR.

Edit: one more of the tree, this time with the 42.5mm f/1.7 at f/11.  ISO 800 to keep the shutter speed up.   At least in this case, it helped to get closer.