Trying the 300mm lens

This is so exciting!

we are having visitors at lunch time today so I have been slogging away at housework but coffee time gave me that window for picking up the camera and trying out the BIG lens!

First thing I noticed was that although I have chosen AF-S (autofocus single as against AF-C which is autofocus continuous - for moving subjects) this 300mm lens does not allow manual focus! There is a switch on the smaller 18-55mm lens that allows me to switch from AF to M but not this one. I thought this would be a problem but I went into the menu to set the focus to "spot" and take a look at this photo of the finches on the wire. When I zoom right in you can see how accurate the spot focus is.

First the uncropped photo showing the way the shot has isolated the birds from the trees behind.

f6.3 1/800 sec ISO 200 180 mm

Now severely cropped to show the accuracy of the spot focus.

Isn't that great!

At the end of our driveway is a palm tree that is sporting a colourful hula skirt of fruits at the moment. From my shooting position on the veranda there is a wire that crosses the lens - you can see the vague shadow of it in the top left corner - the tree must be forty metres from where I was standing.

First the uncropped picture showing the brilliant red berries and some green ones.

f/5.3 1/800 ISO 200 190mm

The second picture is a crop from it and you can see a few of the green berries so that you can work out where the crop was taken.

I have done no further sharpening so I am stoked that I will be able to rely on the camera to get the focus right. The color is spot on too. This was one of the main reasons I chose Nikon over the other cameras I have handled, the color and the sharpness of the images.

AJ