The right lens for the job...

I took delivery yesterday of a new lens, a Canon EOS 200mm f2.8 non IS. I bought this lens primarily for action photography. I have an all-singing and dancing 70 -200mm lens but it is only f4 which means I can only use a 1.4X extender on it if the autofocus is to work accurately. I have a Canon 2x extender but if I use this I have to manually focus which is not ideal for action photography. Most of my lenses have all been zoom lenses so I will have to work on my technique in order to operate with a prime lens. However, this was the cheapest way to expand my horizons.

Naturally today I was giving the lens a bit of a work out with the 2X converter attached. Effectively the lens becomes a f5.6 400mm lens which should autofocus adequately. Bearing in mind that I am using a Canon 7D SLR the camera/lens combination becomes 640mm. Therefore I need to be shooting at 1/1000 th second and above and even on a bright day I need to increase the ISO to 400 or 800. All of these calculations had to be taken into account in purchasing the lens.

The proof of the pudding is, of course in the eating, so how did it perform. When after a few photos at 200 ISO and only getting a 1/250th shutter speed and therefore quite blurry pictures with birds set against the beach landscape, I cranked up the ISO to 400 and shot against the sky and things improved dramatically. I've chosen a group of ducks flying to illustrate the quality of what I am getting. I think they may possibly be mallards but I'm not sure as the wings seemed longer than the illustrations in my bird book.

Sorry for the non-techy blippers that I have been spouting such gobbledegook but I hope in the long-term you will benefit from crisper action shots from me.