I said goodbye to an old friend last week...

I used to photograph a lot of birds, but over the last year or two I've gone more towards the landscape end of things. Looking at my kit, my telephoto went from being my most used lens to hardly being used at all. As a result, I decided to let her go and get a new wide-angle lens which better suits my current style of photography.

So a couple of weeks ago, I took my baby out for one final blaze of glory, then sent her off to someone who will make better use of her. So with that, here's one of the last shots I took with my 400mm:


I'll miss having that kind of reach, but going to the opposite end of the spectrum (15mm, and very compact), I think my new friend will be put to good use over the next few years:



Enjoy!

Wow Andrew, those last few shots are just...wow...

Thanks, Zoom!

I saw your latest batch on Flickr, and they're excellent. Sawyer makes a great subject!

those are awesome

Always a pleasure seeing your work. SOrry your parting with your lens for bird. I will miss your bird shots very much.

Awesome as usual!

Spectacular !!!!

Beautiful shots!!!

That middle shot is shocking it's so beautiful. They're all, as always, wonderful photographs.

Thanks! If you've got any tips on how to make a Quantaray 18-200mm, 6.3f lens take incoming motion shots, I'd love to hear them.

AVAILABLE LIGHT! And try using shutter priority set at a shutter speed of say 1/300 or faster depending on the motion.

Andrew, your landscapes are fantastic. I can see why you've opted to favor that route. :hail:

Ian, I was shooting S-priority, it's all I shoot on, at 1/1200 and 1/650 last night (with lots of light; I've shot at 2pm with the same thing at 1/1600) and couldn't get the **** camera to focus quickly enough once. It does great if they're moving at a slight angle and I can pan along, but anything that is a direct line towards the camera, forget it.

This is a hard focusing situation, and many lenses are just not built well to handle it. What AF mode on the camera are you using? Make sure you use AF-C in these situations, and half-press the shutter down as you track the movement with your focus point.

If you still can't get it, this could very well be a problem with your lens (most likely) or the camera.

There is always manual focus, which can be hard with moving subjects. Also, try stopping down to (increasing your f number) in available light and you will get a larger depth-of-field (although with f/6.3 the dof should already be pretty good sized).

I wish you weren't saying goodbye to this lens. Just because your exploring other areas doesn't mean you won't come back to it. YOUr photo with the Cedar waxwing is imprinted in my memory for if I ever get back to painting. THat was just perfect. IT inspired me.

Thank you very much Jess, Smkie, Barb, Grammy, BP, MM & Ian!

I think the problem is (as Ian pointed out), it's a very tough situation for your camera to AF on. Pair that with the fact that the super-zooms are generally pretty slow focusing and it's an excercise in patience.

Personally, I'd try keeping your focal length to somewhere under 135mm, set your aperture to f/11 or f/16 as a starting point, manually focusing on a point ahead of Sawyer and then calling him towards you. When he gets to the point where focus is starting to shape up, fire a couple of shots off. In order to keep the shutter speed up, you may want to hike the ISO a bit. The idea is f/11 at 135mm will give you some play room with your depth of field (but not a huge amount), so when Sawyer starts to come into focus, by the time the shutter is relased, hopefully he's hit the sweet spot.

I'd love to see that, if you do decide to paint it. If and when you do, let me know and I'll email you the picture.

I'm sad to see the 400 go, but it's given me a bit more flexability in the wide-angle arena. Besides, I may just have to get creative with my short telephoto for the birds, if I ever get the itch to try them out again. It's amazing what you can accomplish, even with a 'normal' lens on a tripod near a bird feeder if you have a remote release

WOW, beautiful shots Andrew, thanks for sharing!

Thanks, HaleyMarie!

Andrew . . . . all I can say is . . . . :hail: :hail: :hail: and :cheers:

Thank you very much, Renee!