Early days with the Canon 300mm L IS USM.

A few days of sunshine and the Easter snow retreating has allowed me the chance to get out into the countryside. I wanted to test the new lens as much as I could and gather a whole heap of images to download, study and compare when I returned home.
Leighton Moss was my first day out, and the first proper sign that this lens was going to work for me, but you decide. Click on the image to enlarge and look at the detail in these Gadwall.

The Gadwall is often overlooked but there is no question about its beauty when you study it closely. The male is to the left the female to the right.
A good test of quality is the sharpness around the eye, if you can nail this area everything else will also be sharp.

 A Coot and a Little Egret share the same pond.This image was taken from quite a distance, but turned out well.

I love this image, birds in flight are a utter nightmare to get right. Notice the eye is sharp and the motion has been frozen using a fast shutter speed, also there is little contrast with the background making this shot even harder to capture correctly. I doubt my old lens would of been as clear as this.

Whilst walking to get a better vantage point on a Great crested grebe that I had spied in my scope this male Goosander flew overhead. I raised the camera and only managed to get 2 shots at this bird, this image is slightly better than the other one.

The autofocus of the 300mm F2.8 is quick, probably 3 times quicker than the 100-400mm F4.5. Again I doubt this image would of been captured with the older lens.

A few minutes later i caught up with the Great crested grebe.It had drifted away slightly, but it did allow me several shots before diving and reappearing some distance away.

The last image that  I have added was not a intentional shot, it was taken as a test when I saw these Mallard ducks flying low over the water. I rattled off half a dozen frames purely to test if I had my camera set up correctly.When I downloaded them later at home I thought this one looked quite good and a little artistic.

It just goes to show that sometimes luck is with you and sometimes it aint . So far I am really pleased with this lens and feel that it has more to deliver yet, but obviously more practice will bring more rewards.None of these images have been enhanced in anyway, just cropped to size.