Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens or other options?

Herb wrote:

The beauty of auto ISO! You can begin to get a better feeling of how you can set aperture as well as shutter speed and let the auto ISO figure that for you. So while you will be in manual, you won’t really be because the camera is setting the ISO.

I do keep it on auto ISO most all of the time. There have been a very few times that I fiddled with it, but the camera usually knows better than me.

so try taking some photos in these cold months before you get back out...work in manual and get a better feeling for different settings in aperture and speed noting what happens with the ISO setting. I once attended a seminar by a professional photographer. He made a comment that has stuck in my head. He said photography is like a professional sport. You have to work at your craft everyday to get really good at it. So if you want to be better, you should be taking at least 500 photos every day....so maybe you aren’t going to take 500 everyday, but you get the idea.....

I agree with that idea. Teaching high school doesn't allow as much practice as I would like, but I am working on it.

By the way just because the 100-400 is rated as a 4.5 -5.6 lens, doesn’t mean that you have the ability to be at 4.5 at 400. The more you zoom from 100 out to 400, the minimum aperture also changes from 4.5 rising to 5.6. That is just the physics of how that lens works.

That REALLY helps to know. I guess I have been spoiled to the 70-200 f/2.8 II is L taking shots at f/2.8 when zoomed at 200mm and still looking great. This is why I needed to ask questions of those who are already using these lenses.

The 200-400 zoom lens is a constant f4 over the zoom range,but then that lens is much larger and heavier than the 100-400 because of the larger glass in it, but then it also costs a bunch more too!

That lens in on my dream list!

Thanks again Herb!

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Herb Turner