I have just had the RF100-500 lens on loan for the weekend. I specifically wanted to try it out for wildlife, mainly birds, while on walks and in the garden. The lens worked great with any shots on stationary subjects, and I got some great results. However, I was disappointed when trying to capture birds in flight when caught against a clear, sunny sky background. The lens would lock on the bird for a millisecond and then lose it and seemed to focus on the sky and I couldn’t regain focus. I tried various settings; manual, TV and AV and tried all the focus options from Eye detect to expanded 9-point focus and even tried the large zones. No matter what I tried the birds in flight against a clear sunny blue sky was very hit and miss. I am assuming the main issue was operator error due to lack of experience with a longer lens but would love to figure out what I was doing wrong.
The lens has been sent back and I went out this morning with my usual lens, the RF70-200 and, using the same settings (TV mode, spot focus or eye detect), I tried similar shots and had nearly 100% success rate. So, conditions, settings, technique were all the same. The only difference was the lens.
Does anyone have any suggestions about what I was doing wrong?
