300mm f/2.8 IS II

[Trowski]

I had to share my excitement with some folks that would know why I'm so excited! I just ordered the new Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS II USM from B&H today and it's suppose to arrive on Friday. I look forward to taking some shots with the lens and sharing them with everyone on the forums.

[Fast Glass]

Good for you! Unfortunately or fortunately, which ever way you look at it, I have a more expensive taste in mind! Can't wait to see what this lensdoes for you.


Cheers,


John.

[btaylor]

Oooh nice.

[Jayson]

Congratulations!!! That is only a dream purchase from this end. Can

[Kayaker72]

Excellent!!! I look forward to the pics and your thoughts on the lens.


I am with Jayson, only a dream at this point. But I am a little shocked by how tempted I am to buy the 400 f/2.8 II. Ridiculous thoughts have fluttered into my head.........

[Rocco]

Did you get it yet??

[Trowski]

I have to hand it to Canon, this new 300mm f/2.8 is amazing. I've never held a more impressive piece of glass. At f/2.8 it is razor sharp, has little evidence of color fringing, lightning fast autofocus, and the new IS is certainly as good or better than the 70-200mm f/2.8 II (quieter too!).


I actually only got to take photos for about an hour today, and a lot of that time was spent experimenting, so at the moment I don't have many good photos to share, but hopefully I'll be able to take some more photos over the long weekend. Most of these aren't keepers, I was just pointing the lens at things to try it out, thus all the shots below were taken hand-held on the 7D.


Once I uploaded the photos to the computer I realized I didn't take all that many shots with the bare 300mm, I took far more with the extenders, but here's one at 300mm 1/500 @ f/2.8 ISO 200 close to MFD:





And a 100% crop of the center of the flower with default Lightroom RAW settings:





Here's a 100% crop from a shot of a grasshopper on the ground: 1/800 @ f/2.8 ISO 100





Later I'll post some more shots with the bare 300mm, since hand-held shots near MFD aren't really the best way to show off a lens. I was excited to finally get some real use out of the 1.4x III and 2x III, so I took many more shots with the extenders attached, particularly the 2x.


One of the better shots of the day, taken at 600mm 1/1000 @ f/5.6 ISO 500 with the 2x III:





And a 100% crop of the above:





While not as nice as the shot above, this is another with the 2x III at 600mm 1/800 @ f/5.6 ISO 320





I posted this image because you can actually see some of the structure in the wing in the 100% crop





I took only a few photos with the 1.4x III, so I didn't have much to choose from. Here's a 100% crop of a bee taken near MFD at 420mm 1/1600 @ f/4 ISO 400:





I think the lens is capable of more than this with the 1.4x, but those bees are difficult to track since they're rather small even at the MFD. The lens seems to work well as a semi-macro lens for flowers, but insects just aren't large enough to place an entire autofocus point over, so results are inconsistent, and a macro lens would allow for much higher magnification anyway.


That being said, I did manage to catch this little guy in flight. 300mm 1/1600 @ f/2.8 ISO 100, cropped to about half the frame:





I'll share some more as I take them!

[JJphoto]

Congratulations Trowski! I'm jealous.


those butterfly shots you took with the 2XTCIII are very nice, try some distant object and see if the the results are good as well. I'm also interesting in knowing how does the AF work when the 2XTCIII is on, is the AF speed fast enough to track a faster moving object? and BTW, what body did you use? thanks!