Hear I go, been gone a year now, and hitting yall with three images at once. Sorry Ive been gone so long, but the new color scheme was giving me a headache, and I only recently found one I can live with.

This is the deal, about 3 weeks ago, I finally was able to pick up my dream camera, the D-100, and life was good. I then, last weekend, started looking for a D70 for my girlfriend, but after checking them out, I decided to let the girlfriend use the D-100, and I walked out the door with the D2H..I so Love this Camera. It may only be 4 mega pixels, but it makes the most with them, and speed, man. Today was the first day to take any real images, and they were exercising the Cheetahs at the National Zoo Washington DC. I know that these are not great images, but I had to share. I have lots to learn about this camera.

The set up, D2H, Nikor 80-200 F/2.8, Plus Tamron 2X TeleConverter, for 600mm focal length.Aperture Priority at F/3.5 (per exif data), Full 8 fps. Of course I probably took 30 Frames, but isnt this what 8 fps is for.

Quinn

Wow! Nothing for a year, and now this! Welcome back! What's your technique for panning? Are you handholding this 600mm?!! Auto focus?

I wish I could say I took these with a N-90 or D-100, but I didnt. The camera deserves a lot of the credit. As far as panning and hand held, yes to both. What I do is put my forearm across a fence or something, and rest the lens in the crook of the back of my forearm and hand. It keeps me from grabbing the lens, and gives me a fairly steady pivot point. Yes to auto focus as well. The D2H has 11 auto focus sensors in the frame, and they use some kind of predictive focus, that I havent quite figured out yet. The look on the two guys faces beside me shooting Big Glass was priceless when I let go at 8 frames per second. As far as seeing the Cheetahs up and around, this is a first in 10 years for me. I happened to walk in from shooting Cherry Blossoms at around 9:00 am, and they were setting up to exercise the cats. They have a rag on a motor driven wire that runs around the enclosure at 25+ mph. I still had a hard time catching this girl given all that.

Thanks for the welcome back!!

So nice to see you back Quinn! Wonderful way to make an entrance!

Wonderful results!

hi, welcome back. these are impressive, especially the last one.

Post number 4 is fantastic, great action shot! TMG

Hiya Quinn. I have to agree, the composition and DOF of #4 are wonderful. Plus I have to give you extra points for handholding at 600mm (anything over 300mm-400mm and I usually bring my monopod along). Misha - I hear that if you jump in with them and do the "hokey pokey" (hey, that's what it's all about) then you can get some really nice action shots. Never tried it though. Still, the napping is very interesting. Wow, if you could get a shot like that with the cat looking at you, I bet that would be killer.