# Hand held wildlife shoot 500 f4mk2



## Mick (Nov 22, 2012)

As usual I took my tripod, gimbal 1D4extenders etc. After setting up the Red Kites arrived and I thought I'd try a few handheld. Well it didn't take to long to figure out the new lens can be handheld all day doing wildlife. New needed to use the tripod. Could never do that with the old one. Pics are sharp even at 500mm and 500th sec. This is worth every penny. Im no body builder either.


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## M.ST (Nov 22, 2012)

Yes. The EF 500 f/4 II L is a perfect lens. I like it.


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## ZoeEnPhos (Nov 22, 2012)

Mick said:


> As usual I took my tripod, gimbal 1D4extenders etc. After setting up the Red Kites arrived and I thought I'd try a few handheld. Well it didn't take to long to figure out the new lens can be handheld all day doing wildlife. New needed to use the tripod. Could never do that with the old one. Pics are sharp even at 500mm and 500th sec. This is worth every penny. Im no body builder either.



Hello Mick!

Congratulations to your new super-tele-lens Mick!

(Noted that the new EF600mm f/4L IS USM II, is almost in the same weight-class, as the old Canon EF500mm f/4L IS USM I was.)

I am interested what you think about your new excellent equipement - if you did think that the reach would be enough (with the EF 500 II vs EF 600 II, for your photography, if you in future will mostly photographing birds with a full-frame DSLR?

I have 7D as I see that you also have - how is the IQ if you use the EF500mm f/4L IS USM II with your 7D? 
By the way, the smaller crop-sensor also using the so called "sweet spot" of the centre-of-the-lens and there would be even maybe a bit less vignetting tendency. 


Are you often using your Extenders with your new EF 500 II? What do you think about the IQ with the Extender between your DSLR and your lens?

Was it maybe a bit difficult choice for you to purchase the EF500 II vs EF600 II? (Reach/weight reduce)

Isn´t there also this factor, that if you using often a quite heavy lens that you are being used to handle this a bit heavier lens hand held, when not even being a body-builder?

Thanks for sharing Mick and wishing you happy shootings with great photos outdoors!

All the Best!
C


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## Mick (Nov 22, 2012)

I won't be using a full frame camera for birds and wildlife in the future. The reason is this. Wildlife is all about reach. The 1DX is amazing. It's the best all round camera.It has one major Achilles heal, reach. Ill give you an example. I was out with a Nat Geo published wildlife guy. He had an x. Every and I mean every shot he had to use an extender. I didn't. He has a choice, get closer, which shooting wildlife we would do if we could or buy a bigger heavier lens. Then again I could buy a 600 and have an even bigger reach advantage. The x is better in everything but when reach is needed, no.

Sweet spot? These lens are bang on edge to center.Dont get any vignette issues with the 7D, tiny bit 1d4, more with a full frame like my 1ds3. 

Extenders, never on a 7, a bit on the 4, almost always on the full frame. It's a reach thing.That said, on a pro body the slowing of autofocus isn't so bad even with canons excellent x2 mk3 extender. Shots are sharp, just not so sharp as a bare lens.

No issue buying a 500. Couldn't hand hold the older 500 a lot like the new 600, can always hold the new 500. I also don't,won't buy an x, no reach.

Image quality? Oh dear here we go. There was no differance in quality at A3 between new and old lens. What was a differance was weight, stabilisation, flare, but print for print, no differance but you will get more keepers and sharper slow speeds with the new one, and you can hand old all day so you will get more in focus pics. 

As for image differences between cameras the bigger the sensor pixels you really do see a richer pic, more contrast but nothing a minute in photoshop won't fix. But the worse the light the more you see the differance.


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## neuroanatomist (Nov 23, 2012)

While I agree with you, Mick, that reach is important, so is noise performance. Many times, the best time for shooting birds/wildlife is early and late in the day. At f/4 to get even 1/250 s shutter, I often find that I need ISO 6400. At that point, the 7D is giving me a noisy mess, and the 1D X is giving me a very usable image.


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## Edwin Herdman (Nov 23, 2012)

I would rather have to sacrifice some noise to keep the pixel density of the 7D image. A bird photo that doesn't resolve any details isn't much good even if it's free of noise.

I think the 7D replacement should help these concerns to a large extent.


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