Powerful

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I was wittering about trading in the Big Lens for a 100-400mm; I had a quote from mpb offering me a surprisingly good price for my prime against an "as new" second-hand zoom, and I almost went ahead and and authorised them to send a courier to fetch it. But..... it was still a lot of money, and I wasn't 100% certain about it.... so I dithered and mithered, until the quote lapsed and they sold the 100-400 I'd been looking at. And then shrugged my shoulders and thought maybe another time.

Yesterday an email arrived from Canon, listing their autumn cashback offers - among which was £215 on the 100-400L, plus another 10% off the full purchase price and a 3-year warranty. I phoned London Camera Exchange and asked if they had one in stock, and if they'd be interested in taking the Big Lens off my hands - and as the answer to both questions was "Yes", this morning I zoomed over to Leamington Spa and made the trade. By the time Canon honour their part of this deal it will have cost me a hundred pounds less to acquire a brand new zoom with a 3-year warranty than I was contemplating spending on a second-hand one with a 6-month warranty. How lucky is that?!

Back in Stratford I met up with R for lunch, then unpacked the Big Zoom, applied it with trembling fingers to the 5DIII, and went off - very nervously - to try it out. Within about five minutes I was totally in love with it, and snapping away at everything in sight - it's soooo sharp, and lightning-fast, and the bokeh is lovely.... the only down side really is the weight, but I figure that's what monopods are for. Everything I took today was fully hand-held, in quite poor light, and the proportion of failed shots was low - I even managed a couple of gulls in flight, some people, and a very nice record shot of a moth on one of our windows. So I'm confident that the BZ is going to earn its place in my kit.

I was on my way back to the car when some people started throwing food to the gulls near the Chain Ferry, and I saw this swan, which was about a hundred metres away, realise what was happening and set off at high speed, to try to reach the feeding frenzy in time to share it. I love to see them powering through the water like this, with their wings flared and creating a bow wave, and I got a nice sequence of shots as it came towards me; I've chosen this one because I like the contrast between the white plumage and the red and blue of the Ferry.

Now: Mono Monday results. Thanks to everyone who played this week - I've had a lot of enjoyment from looking at your images and admiring the range of instruments and musical devices you chose to feature. My hearts this week (in no particular order) go to:

dollydoug
davidc
BlackTulip
Xtoffdav
greg_lovett

And my Honourable Mentions go to:

JohnEdward
kayakgirl
Hanulli
si_b
NickyR
sk

I also want to mention the lack of music in maura143's terribly poignant tribute to Leo.

I hope that you'll play again next week, when the tag will be MM197, and the theme will be Animal - which I mean in its broadest sense: anything that falls within this definition will be considered.