First results with the 200-500 f5.6 (Image added, 27th)

[David Paterson]

I've had the lens for three weeks but today was the first sunny day we have had, so I shot a lot of real-world tests.

This fieldfare should be in Spain by now; instead, she was in our garden eating the berries from our Chinese rowan; 500mm at f9, 100% crop re-sized to 1200px for the forum. Looks good to me. Next thing is - get closer to the target.      

[Ron Scubadiver]

Sweet.  Hard to get bad pictures with that lens.  Builds up your arms too.

[elsa hoffmann]

Ah you are going to love it. Enjoy the lens

[David Paterson]

Thanks, both.

You might be right, Ron, about body-building - I had to go and take a little nap after heaving this monster around for 2-3 hours.   

[BW]

The fieldfare are probably in spain. You have photographed a mistle thrush It looks great by the way and the lens is a great performer.

[Mongo]

nice start David. Do not be afraid to use it wide open or at f6.3 generally. You can also get away with a 1.4 EII @ about f9 to f10 for stationary subject.

 

[Frank Fremerey]

Perfect shot.  But you will have taken a lot of good shots within three weeks. Are there more shots you like to share?

[David Paterson]

Thanks Børge - you are right, of course - I discovered my mistake earlier tonight but then forgot to correct the post. So that's two mistakes.   

Mongo - thanks for the comment and the advice; which I shall follow, of course! I've been using 7.1 quite a bit, to see if I can get just a sliver of DoF.

Frank - the weather has been horrendous and I've been struggling for most of  those three weeks with the consequences of the biggest computer disaster of my life. Are you Apple Mac? If so, DO NOT put your faith in Time Machine. I have religiously taken TM backups every two weeks, for many years. But when I finally really needed to restore the system drive on my main computer, Time Machine DIDN'T WORK. At all. So I have shot almost nothing - sorry! But it was nice of you to think I might have more good images.

[Akira]

A great result right from the first post with your new lens, but it is not surprising given your standard of how a quality image should look like.  The image quality is also impressive even as 100% crop (equivalent of a X000mm lens?!).

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I think most users of the 200-500 will find the results nice and useful. Dave's bird is evidence for this.

As to the backup/recovery issue Dave found himself troubled with, any regime of backups has to be mistrusted until one proves it'll work. Just unplug a disk drive and see how troublesome, or preferably easy, it is to get the missing data or OS back by restoring the data.

[Fons Baerken]

I love that rowan variety, Sorbus cashmeriana?

[pluton]

Good bird photo.
Sorry to to hear TM failed to do it's job.  It has always worked for me.  In fact, I recently erased a conventional clone and replaced it with a second TM.
I erase and start my TMs over every six months or so. 

[David Paterson]

Thank you all very much for the kind comments about my fieldfare mistle-thrush picture. And for all the insights into backups, TM and others, and the frailty thereof. Wasn't it Joni Mitchell who sang "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? That gal just wrote the Mac-users' anthem, right there.

Another 100% crop - this time it is definitely a goldfinch! I'm getting some practice in with the 200-500, around our feeders.

[Erik Lund]

Congratulations on the fine lens! Looks like a good one

Good luck with the computer,,,

[elsa hoffmann]

Great image - I like it a lot