Lens for dog agility / action

[DavidEccleston]

And the agility results are in... The keeper rate was pretty low, especially at first. A lot of that was down to it being a fun match with everyone running their own course. I had no idea when/if/in what direction anyone would take a particular obstacle... and it's really hard to track a randomly moving object at higher zoom levels. And the noon sun.... ugh. I ended up ditching servo mode and attempted to notice a few patterns in how people ran the course. I'd then pre-focus on an up-coming jump, which seems to be how most people shoot agility anyway.

Also, I'm terribly sorry if you don't like the cross processed look... they've all been afflicted to some degree.


Zuni A-Frame by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Zu jumping by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Another jumper by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Howl at the Sun by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Jumping Huskey by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Border Collie jumping by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Tug, tug, tuuugggg by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


It's not Joey, jumping by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr


Zuni and Chase by namethatnobodyelsetook, on Flickr

[thekingb]

I'm not a huge cross processing fan, but I really like the second shot of Zuni. Great action shot.

[ddt0725]

WOW! These are very sharp and I am very seriously considering ditching my 100-400mm and seeing if I can find a used copy of this lens somewhere!

[DavidEccleston]

Thanks thekingb. Zuni was the easiest to shoot by far, as Magda told me where she was going to go.

Denise, if you can give up the 300-400mm range, this lens is sharper (based on a fuzzy memory of few shots I look with a borrowed 100-400mm two years ago). I think they're roughly the same price, so you shouldn't lose much aside from those 100mm.

The trick may be finding someone who's selling this lens. Perhaps someone who has since decided they need the wider aperture.

I also switched to 'auto iso' mode, and M. I pretty much left the aperture set to wide open, set the shutter speed to 1600-2000, and let the camera figure out what ISO that should be. These shots range from low ISO values like 160, on up to 2500.