Preparing a photo-tour in Iceland : AF tracking tips on SL

[RoySmith]

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Hi Roy, that Canon 100-400 lens isn’t any smaller than 90-280 in my humble opinion. And is not as good.

The SL 90-280 is 238mm in length - the canon EF 100-400mm II is 193mm and just barely fit in the pelican case - along with the camera, short zoom and a tele-extender. I haven’t purchased the 90-280 yet but it is on my list. I’m certain the 90-280’s quality is better. You’ve posted some impressive wildlife shots on the forum, which have wetted my appetite for this lens.

 

Cheers

Roy

 

 

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[meerec]

The SL 90-280 is 238mm in length - the canon EF 100-400mm II is 193mm and just barely fit in the pelican case - along with the camera, short zoom and a tele-extender. I haven’t purchased the 90-280 yet but it is on my list. I’m certain the 90-280’s quality is better. You’ve posted some impressive wildlife shots on the forum, which have wetted my appetite for this lens.

Cheers

Roy

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Thank you Roy for kind comment.

By the way, I suppose 193mm is at the short focal length (at 100mm) and the lens extends quite a bit at 400mm as I remember, I used to own the mark I of it many years ago. The 90-280 doesn’t change its length when zooming.

[Linford]

I moved back to Leica from Canon’s long lenses for image quality reasons long ago. Manual focus never held me back for wildlife. AF is often the inferior choice. Leica’s AF should suffice, although Canon’s is arguably faster. Birds, especially in flight, is an entirely different matter.

 

I completely agree!!!--

[Bohns]

Thank you to all participants of this thread.

 

I tried again today on eratic moving animals (my 2 kids) several AF-C configuration. The best result I got did not go over 60-70% of correct focus. Correct, and even not perfect. Please note that I took care of ensuring a fast enough shutter speed (1/2000)...

 

Maybe shall I update the firmware with the 90-280 mounted on the body ? Each time I did it, the 24-90 was installed. My 90-280 is from 2016-end, at the time the SL firmware was 2.0. Can it be of importance ?

[FlashGordonPhotography]

If you have the latest firmware in the body the lens is automatically updated when you attach it. You don't get a choice.

 

As for the tracking. The SL does great for a CDAF system but won't match the better PDAF systems for this purpose. At distance you might just revert to SAF and let the DoF help you (shoot at 5.6). If critical CAF is vital then consider taking the SL for the short end and renting an A9, 100-400 and 1.4x for the longer stuff. This is the current benchmark in mirrorless CAF.

 

Gordon