Wednesday, May 4, 2016

New Glass at Last!

     Back in April I had the pleasure of going to Pittsburgh for the wedding of two wonderful friends of mine. During some down time between events another friend of mine decided to waste a bit of time at the local casino playing craps. Two hours later I left with nearly twelve-hundred dollars in my pocket! For a minute I thought of all of the sweet, sweet Lego that I could get but then my lovely wife said "now you can get a lens". She's brilliant.

     I've heard good things about Canon's 300mm F/4L lens. It was sharp, light-weight, and worked well with a teleconverter. So I decided to rent the lens and a 1.4x TC version III from Lens Rentals.

IMG_20160425_110957
Canon 300mm f/4L, 1.4x Teleconverter and 7d mkii
My concern was having a prime lens after using the zoom 100-400mm for so long. But I knew that most of my photos were always at 400mm anyway. Turns out, I didn't mind that and I love the lens. That combination gives 420mm on a full frame camera, and on the cropped sensor of the 7D Mkii, a whopping 700mm in 35mm equivalent. And on top of that, the 300mm f/4L has Image Stabilization while the 400mm f/5.6 prime does not.
I took the gear into the backyard for a test run.


Anna's Hummingbird
Anna's Hummingbird - MBY, Gilbert, AZ

House Finch
House Finch - MBY, Gilbert, AZ
And a trip to some local parks for more practice. These next two were taken at dusk and hand-held.

Burrowing Owl
Burrowing Owl - Zanjero Park, Gilbert, AZ

Great Blue Heron
Great-Blue Heron - Zanjero Park, Gilbert, AZ
I wanted to get the most out of the lens since I was just renting it for the week. So my daughter and I went to Veteran's Oasis Park in Chandler the next evening while my son was at soccer practice.

Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Yellow-Rumped Warbler - Veteran's Oasis Park, Chandler AZ

Say's Phoebe
Say's Phoebe - Veteran's Oasis Park, Chandler AZ

Verdin
Verdin - Veteran's Oasis Park, Chandler AZ

Verdin
Verdin - Veteran's Oasis Park, Chandler AZ

     I liked the lens so much, that I utilized Lens Rentals' "Keeper" option and bought the lens and TC outright. They let you see the price it would take to keep the equipment that you are renting if you like it. The price takes into account the condition of the gear that they sent you, and removes the rental fees that you have already paid. Great options if you are test-driving gear that you aren't sure if you want to buy it or not. You can also go to their sister site, Lens Authority, to buy their used gear, which can come with a 2-year warranty.
     
     The other reason that I wanted to rent the gear this particular week, was that I was meeting a friend of mine in South-Eastern Arizona to look for Elegant Trogons. I will write about that trip in my next post.

Thanks for making it this far,

Cheers.
 
And if you'd like, follow me on Instagram: @bothering_birds https://www.instagram.com/bothering_birds/


1 comment:

  1. Welcome come back to the real world
    still think you should have went with Nikon ;-)

    ReplyDelete