Figure 1 – Ancient Tree, Concord, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Back in the cold of winter I bought myself a Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens.  This is one of the gems of the Canon lens line, when considered on the basis of dollars per modulation transfer function.  It was cold and it was winter, so I did a quick test to make sure that all was well and put the lens away in my camera bag.  Ideally, this is your nature photography lens.  With the 1.6 multiplier it offers up a whopping 640 mm focal length.  Well there it lay all winter, in my camera bag.  And then this past Sunday was the most glorious day imaginable, and I thought that there were no longer any excuses to not taking it out and slogging through the mud along the Concord River by the Old North Bridge and seeing what images I could take.

Well, I learned quite a few points.  First, this is a lot of glass and not so easy to trek around with.  I took to wearing my camera over my neck with the front of the lens tucked into my shoulder bag for extra support.  But I like the convenience of a monopod and then you wind up carrying the whole rig in your hand.  Unless, of course, you get one of those quick release mounts.  Hmm, note to self … Second, and here’s the most important point, you’ve got to learn how to make this lens work, how to work with it, particularly if your goal is bird pictures.  And third, it’s going to be worth the effort.  While not as sharp as my 100 to 200 mm L lens this lens makes nice sharp and beautiful images.

As I learn more about it, I’m going to share images over the next few weeks.  Hopefully, there will be some nice bird and animal pictures.  But for starters, just to show what the lens can do, I’d like to share Figure 1- an image of a venerable old tree.  I love the soft waves of the roots piercing the ground.

Oh, I suppose that you want the  “blah de blah.”  Ok, this is the very first real photograph that I took with this lens.  It is at minimum focal length 100 mm. ISO is 400.  Exposure is Aperture=priority AE 1/400 s at f/8.0.  Hope that clears things up!