sanjoy___

Just my take on *moderately* priced *fast* telephotos : there are good deals out but you need a LOT of patience to find them! I have bought a used Canon EF500/4.5L recently at a very reasonable price, but I had to wait about 5 months to get one at the price I wanted, and that may not be your cuppa tea. But then I am not a professional, so...

Chris:

 

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I own the 300/4L and the Canon 1.4x extender. I have also had the chance to use the 70-200/2.8L on a couple of occasions, with quite a few exposures with the 1.4 attached. As to sharpness they are close (280/4 and 300/4), at least to my eye, on a lightbox with a good 4x loupe. But what really set the 300/4 apart is the way the out of focus highlights in the background were rendered, much softer and much more pleasing to the eye. Of course, these are simply qualitative opinions without much data to back them, and you need to decide if the versatilety of the zoom outweighs the slight loss in image quality and the slightly higher price.

As a followup to my original post; the animal looked a little skinny but did not appear to be sick or injured. Its behavior wasn't threatening and I never got the impression that it might be thinking of me as supper :-) Like Bob mentioned, I got the strong feeling that it was just looking for a handout, and that it had probably been fed by humans in the past. It might also have been Wiley (of aforementioned road runner cartoon fame), but it wasn't carrying any ACME gizmos with it, so I can't be sure :-) I have got my slides back and some of them have turned out beautifully (E100SW pushed a stop), and if I can cut through the red tape at the University Computing Facilities I will post one or two here.

A couple of weeks back while I was waiting for the sunset near Balanced Rock in Arches NP, I came across this coyote that seemed just a little too friendly. He obviously wasn't scared of me; on the contrary, he was as close as 10 feet away and in no hurry to depart. I've never heard of a predator in the wild behaving this way; could it have been fed by visitors to the Park and was thus used to human presence? I spent the next 10 mins or so photographing a willing subject in really sweet light, and living through an experience I've never had before. Anyway, just wanted to share and to wonder aloud, is this kind of an encounter common amongst those who shoot wildlife for a living?

I would tend to agree with Bob Atkins; the 20 would make more sense if you have a 28 already. I own the 20/2.8usm and this is a superb lens; very sharp and contrasty and not prone to flare. I have also used the 20-35/3.5-4.5usm and was not impressed even with the lens stopped down (maybe I had a defective sample).

I too use Sensia RD100 on a regular basis; its highly saturated, very tight grain and FAR cheaper than its professional siblings. Have also recently used a few rolls of Ektachrome 100SW; was very impressed with what I saw, AND it pushes slightly better than Sensia (but at more than twice the price).