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.

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.....

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.

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!

Herb, great advise. I shoot manual 90% of the time with auto ISO. I go full manual if the light does not change. (overcast or indoor sports).

The more you use your camera the better your skills will be. Not only that but you learn more about your camera. If you have to think about how to change your cameras settings then you need more practice.

Casey