Mid-February Wildlife-Canon 100-400mm L IS II Problems

Whitetail Herd In Snowstorm

 Just a short time ago we were plunged into the depth of winter with deep snow and bitter cold.  This changed quickly; however, as we saw in the Ice-Out post. While snow still remained on the ground in most places, life was much easier for the deer and turkeys as they could now travel about easily looking for food.

Alert Gobbler

Travel Was Easy

Three days later, there was even less snow in the spot the turkeys were photographed  and deer liked to stand there, basking in the rays of the afternoon sun.

Doe Basking In Late Winter Sun

Doe Grooming Fawn

There was even less snow by yesterday morning and I photographed a buck, that was a small spike last fall, and some does feeding in a neighbor's rye field.

Last Year's Spike

Deer Pause From Grazing In Rye

After a chilly start, yesterday turned into a balmy day  that reached the mid 60s.  This made my thoughts turn to the coming spring waterfowl migration and hopefully a trip or two to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area.  If the current weather pattern does not change, the peak of the snow geese and tundra swan migration should be much earlier than in the past two years.

All photos were taken with the Canon 7D MK II.  The 24-105mm IS L lens was used for the first photo and the 70-200mm 2.8 L IS II was used for the remainder. I love the sharpness of the new Canon 100-400mm IS II, and have been using it a lot this winter, but I have had problems with it (or the camera it is mounted on) locking up (auto-focus stops and the IS doesn't work).  Seldom a day goes by without this happening at least once.  Strangely it seems to do it more often with the 7D MK II, but it does it occasionally with the 5D MK III, the 70D, and the original 7D.  Sometimes simply moving the focusing ring a bit will restore function, while other times re-seating the lens will do the trick, but sometimes the battery must be removed and re-inserted.  I returned the lens and the 7D MK II to Canon at the end of December, and they changed the focus assembly and other parts and calibrated the camera with the lens, but the problem was still there.  I sent the lens back at the beginning of the week and Canon is currently servicing it so I could not use it for the photos in today's post and the 70-200mm is filling in as the telephoto lens to use when photographing from the vehicle until it gets back. Hopefully they will find the problem this time

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.