400L 5.6 delivered tomorrow

[bob williams]

Homer, Congrats. Though I love my 100-400, I often wish that I had made the same decision you did for basically the same reasons. The IQ of the 400 5.6 just seems to outshine the 100-400.
Regarding settings: a good rule of thumb is shutter speed at least double the focal length when hand held or moving subjects which means keep it above 800 when possible and don't be afraid to bump the iso if needed to maintain shutter speed. You can fix or improve noise but you can't fix blurry, so keep it fast. A tripod or mono pod isn't a must but will probably improve your keeper rate. My tripod did more to improve my images than did lens or camera upgrades.

Congrats again, and don't forget to share some of your new images.

[conropl]

Regarding settings: a good rule of thumb is shutter speed at least double the focal length when hand held or moving subjects which means keep it above 800 when possible and don't be afraid to bump the iso if needed to maintain shutter speed. You can fix or improve noise but you can't fix blurry, so keep it fast. A tripod or mono pod isn't a must but will probably improve your keeper rate. My tripod did more to improve my images than did lens or camera upgrades.

Congrats again, and don't forget to share some of your new images.

The rule of thumb is to double the focal length, but with a cropped body such as the 7D, I thought you also should multiply by the crop factor. So in the case of the 7D with a 400mm, the rule of thumb for hand holding w/o IS would be 1/1280 sec (2*400*1.6). At least that is my understanding.

[bob williams]

I thought you also should multiply by the crop factor. So in the case of the 7D with a 400mm, the rule of thumb for hand holding w/o IS would be 1/1280 sec (2*400*1.6). At least that is my understanding.

Thats probably more accurate---and with these lenses, the faster the better.