Wigeon Flight with the 7D2 and 100-400 II

[Doug Brown]

I spent some time the other day testing the 7D2 with the 100-400 II for BIF, and came away fairly impressed. It's not a lightning-fast AF combination (at least in the challenging conditions I was shooting in), but a good number of the frames were sharp. The challenges included a varied BG, mixed sun and shade, and birds that were quite close to me (and thus moved across my FOV quite rapidly). Here's an American Wigeon; I'll include an unprocessed 100% RAW file crop in my next post. I used Case 4 and top/bottom/left/right focus point expansion for this shot.

Canon 7D Mark II, 100-400 II @ 300 mm, f/7.1, ISO 800, 1/2500, manual exposure, hand held

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[Doug Brown]

Here's what the FF version looks like. This gives you an idea of how large in the frame the bird was.

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[Doug Brown]

And here's a 100% RAW file crop.

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[Joe Subolefsky]

Impressive for sure. Do you have shutter priority set to focus on both sliders? I was happy with my 7DII before but that one tweak seems to really have upped the keeper rate in my case. Seriously thinking about unloading my 70-200 which I hardly ever use but always drag around in the bag and picking up the new 100-400, seems like it would see a lot more use.

[Doug Brown]

Hi Joe. CPS advised me to try adjusting the sliders because I was having AF problems with a previous 7D2 body that I've since exchanged. I tried the changes but they didn't fix the problem I was having. This new body focuses well without changing the sliders.

[arash_hazeghi]

Very nice Doug, looks good and sharp. Glad it's finally working for you. I might brighten the image a tad.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice indeed Doug, well caught, it is very rewarding when you can get one that size in the frame.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome flight shot with superb detail at 100% crop in raw! Nice wind position and the water drops are cool.

[David Salem]

Im glad you are getting good results from thais combo. Not sure why it doesn't like the 600 but it should be a nice lightweight combo to travel with and still get some nice avian shots like this one. All looks good on this one and I like the wing position and the water drops. I might lighten it up just a little. Have a good safe trip to CR and see ya when you get back for our workshop.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Doug - Looks good. Glad to see that you finally got it sorted and a good copy of the 7DII.

TFS,
Rachel

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent flight shot, Doug Sir. Very informative discussion.

Regards,
Satish.

[yogesh_puranik]

Super image doug really liked the sharpness, wing position, angle of the image and overall impact is superb. One question i have is even if the focal point is not near the head/eye, the image is really pretty sharp. I have canon 70D and 100-400 & i observed similar behavior, could you please provide your thoughts on this?