Shakin' With the New 200-400

Here's a frame from my recent West Coast Flight workshop with Jim Neiger and guest instructor Arash Hazeghi. An Elegant Tern shaking off after diving into the water for a fish. This was my first chance to use the new 200-400mm lens, which was lent to me by one of the workshop participants. It's definitely a great lens; well built, excellent optics, and I love the built-in 1.4x. My only issue is the price, which at $12,000, is a little steep for focal length IMO.

Canon 1Dx, 200-400mm @ 526mm, f/7.1, 1/3200, ISO 400, manual exposure, hand held

Great flight position captured, Doug. Terns make such great subjects, but not easy to capture. Light on the underwing would have put it over the top.

Now that's a great action capture. Love the form created by the bird's pose. Awesome image.

Fantastic! Not an easy photograph to capture. Love the action.

A nice shake, Doug. The curves of the wings, tail and head produce an artistic composition!

I love this Image Doug. I've been struggling to get an image of terns in a normal pose. This is a unique image.
Is the image cropped or FF?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iain Barker

I love this Image Doug. I've been struggling to get an image of terns in a normal pose. This is a unique image.
Is the image cropped or FF?

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Thanks Iain. This image is 70% of horizontal full frame.

Brilliant as always, Doug! All's been said above, the BG is a winner and I love the water droplets, the subject's movement, all well exposed, love it!!!

Kind regards,

Excellent image Doug! I like the flying water drops, twisted body, IQ and BG.

This is a unique image, Doug. It's quite captivating with the pose,. water spray, ruffled feathers and varied BG.

Beautiful artistic pose you have captured with very nice water droplets. Wonderful and colorful backdrop,lights,details and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

Hi Doug, great pose, and I do like the light and overall colours. The flying droplets add to the unique inflight pose.

Im thinking of hiring one for next weekend for a 4 day trip to our Kruger National Park.

Very cool pose on this contorted Tern. Love the fact that you got him in a varied BG. The water spray looks great too. Nice capture but I want to see the one I saw on your camera's display! :w3

Oh man, that's so good it's sick...love the pose, drops, and killer background.

Doug,

Very dynamic shot. The full 90 degree head tilt, the subtle highlight at the trailing edge of the wing, the tri-tone background (really like the inclusion of the blue at the bottom to help tie in the water droplets).

Yeah, at $12k that's a bit steep. I do hope that the next generation of super-teles all come with a built in 1.4x (and I hope they can keep the weight down too).

Miguel

Thanks everyone for the feedback!