400mm not for light of heart

Is this a great lens? Yes. Is it heavy and will it take practice to use it. Yes. This lens is not a lens that you can pick up and simply use. A heavy tripod and a Gimbal type tripod head is a must. The IS makes hand holdable possible only for the strong or for very short duration. But it is possible down to 1/100 second.

I was able to pick this lens up used for less. Not cheap but for less. To date I have taken a few hundred pictures with it and while the first showed mixed success, the later images really show what this lens is capable of. In using a lens that weighs almost 12 pounds, technique is very important. Also, simply finding the subject when a 2X convertor is attached, can be difficult at best. Tracking takes hours of practice and skill.

I strongly recommend a Wimberly type Gimbal head that will balance center of gravity on all axis. This allows letting go of the camera without having the camera move. At all. This telephoto (or the 500mm and 600mm for that matter) would be all the more difficult to use with out the Wimberly head.

Mirror lockup, sandbags or simply gentle lens will help get the sharpest photos. The IS also helps immensely and while it seems to allow using a smaller/lighter tripod, it does not seem to help with mirror slap as much. It helps some but not all.

But with practice, it is possible to get images of great color, saturation, contrast and sharpness.

Sample Images:
http://www.pbase.com/image/25010829
http://www.pbase.com/image/24284020
http://www.pbase.com/image/29511345