Originally posted by Sparks
That's a nice set ChickenHawk and I think you will find that zoom length fine. To be honest I noticed that a lot of the time I was only zoomed arond 300. I'm finding that sucessful panning at 400 is REALLY difficult (and the lens is Image Stabilsed but still getting blur).
Just for info I used the AI Servo focusing mode and it seemed to do ok - you just have to try to keep the subject on a focus point.
Oh and I used a polariser to try to give the colors some puch in the poor light but that was probably a mistake in hind sight - live and learn.
I took a few shots at the ILA show in Berlin with my 30D and 70-200/2.8L IS + 2x extender.. BAD IDEA. The 2x extender ruins the image quality of the otherwise excellent lens. When shooting at the 400 mm end most of the shots appeared to be blurred even with the IS and quite fast shutter speeds. AI servo worked pretty well for me as well, most of the shots were in focus.
The weather was mostly cloudy as well, I think with clear skies it would have been better. I didn't use polarizer with the tele lens, on my 24-70/2.8 I used polarizer and it worked pretty well. Probably because I used it to shoot only static targets on ground. I also used 100 ISO on all shots, on hindsight it might have been better to use 200 or 400.
Here's a couple of examples:
I also had lots of dirt on my sensor for some reason, and it ruined many otherwise good shots when shooting in Shutter priority mode. I had cleaned the sensor just a week before, and on the test shots I did on Thursday the sensor was still clean, but apparently at some point I changed lenses in dusty conditions and the dust got sucked in..
