Orange dragonflies and a Canon 100-400 zoom lens

I rented a lens for the next few days: a Canon 100-400, f 4.5-5.6 L IS from BorrowLenses (really good system: you choose the lens and the length of time you want to rent it, and they either ship it to you or if you're lucky, like we are, they ship it to a local camera shop and you can pick it up and return it there). I have used this lens before, but forgot just how heavy it is... and it's really not going to be right for what I wanted to do tomorrow but it will be fun over the weekend. (If you want to know more about BorrowLenses, nip over to Toon's Tunes, my other blog, and click the ad that your'll find there.)

So I played around with the lens, first indoors, then out. I couldn't get M (manual) + auto-ISO to work. But I did succeed with T (time) + auto-ISO. Wandered around snapping a few flowers, enjoying the lens' bokeh. I love the effect that you can get with long lenses.

And then... dragonflies! The vegetable garden was the place to be!

I really like this lens. The clarity is excellent, even when cropped and exported as low-res images. I need to work out more or something though, because it is heavy, and it's definitely not one for dangling on camera from a two-camera harness. You'll fall over sideways.

More pictures on Flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/alisontoon/sets/72157634473958224/