Vasili's Canon EOS R1 -- 100-300 & 840mm Pano Crops

Your Call?

Which of today’s five featured Vasili Chernishof Canon EOS R1 images do you like best? Why? (Be sure to click on each image to view the larger, sharper high res version.)

What’s Up?

With the handwriting on the wall and the Eagles up 17-0 in the second quarter, I opted to hit the sack at 7:30pm. Somewhat miraculously, I slept through to the alarm at 2:45am.

Today is Monday 10 February 2025. Bob Eastman and I were headed to the airport by 3:20am After dropping me off at Alaska Airlines, Bob heads for Paducah, KY and expects to be at his place in Reedsburg, WI by Wednesday afternoon (barring the severe snow and ice storms in the forecast), The temp should be about 5° F when he gets home. As for the Chiefs, things only got worse as the Eagles put a 40-22 beating on my favorite team. Bob arrived in Florida near the end of October and as regular readers know, we had a blast since then. Thanks for everything, Bob, and safe travels on your long journey home. Whatever you opt to do, we hope that you too choose to have a great day.

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This image was created on 21 January 2025 on a San Diego In-the-Field session by multiple IPT veteran Vasili Chernishof. Standing at full height, he used a Gitzo tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Canon RF 600mm f/4 L IS USM lens with the Canon Extender RF 1.4x (at 840mm) and the remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera. ISO 320: 1/5000 sec at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 9:35:40. Image #1: Brown Pelican Pacific race breeding plumage in flat flight Image courtesy of and copyright 2025: Vasili Chernishof Image Optimization by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Vasili and the Canon EOS R1

Vasili showed up in San Diego looking to put his brand new Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless camera
to the test. And that is what he did to the tune of between 80 and 100,000 images in a single week. I took a peek at most of those images and was thoroughly impressed by both the speed and especially the accuracy of the Bird Eye tracking and the rich natural colors of the raw files. In today’s blog post, I share five of his best images; I believe that each was improved by my pano crop. As I did, Vasili used his tripod-mounted RF 600mm f/4 lens only sparingly on the trip, often, again as I did, often with the (RF) 1.4X Extender.

The last time I photographed with him he was using a ridiculous Gitzo tripod head that severely hampered him. After quite a bit of badgering by yours truly he finally purchased a Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro from the BIRDS S ART Online Store. He loves it as it allows him to work efficiently with his 600mm f/4 that he can hand hold only for brief moments. Shooting flight with the Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro is a dream: smooth effortless panning without any ballhead flop.

This image was created on 22 January 2025 on a San Diego In-the-Field session by multiple IPT veteran Vasili Chernishof. Standing at full height, he used the hand held Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens (at 170mm) and the remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera. ISO 2000: 1/4000 sec at f/2.8 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 8:46:26am on a cloudy morning. Image #2: Brandt’s Cormorant incoming flight Image courtesy of and copyright 2025: Vasili Chernishof Image Optimization by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Canon EOS R1 Impressive Autofocus

As I have said here quite a bit recently, I was very impressed by the R1’s AF system. With this image, the bird’s face and eyes were incredibly sharp despite the fact that the top of the bird’s head was barely in the frame. A significant amount of canvas was added above and to each side to create the panoramic format.

The 100-300mm f/2.8 Canon Lens

Vasili loves his Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens and used it either alone or with one of the two Canon TCs for much of his San Diego photography. Weighing in at a hefty 5.7 pounds, the lens is quite heavy for most folks and is only minimally lighter than the Canon 600mm f/4. Add another 1/2 or 3/4 pound with one of the relatively gargantuan Canon teleconverters and you are lugging around quite a load. With its smaller physical size, however, Vasili was easily able to hand hold it for long shooting sessions.

With the RF Extender 2X in place, you have a very versatile (and very heavy) 200-600 f/5.6 rig that is 1/3 stop faster and otherwise, except for the weight, comparable to the much lighter Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens or the quite similar Nikon NIKKOR Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR lens (Nikon Z).

Bob Eastman and I are very happy with our Sony 200-600s.

This image was created on 23 January 2025 on a San Diego In-the-Field session by multiple IPT veteran Vasili Chernishof. Kneeling on damp sand, he used the hand held Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens with the Canon Extender RF 1.4x (at 420mm) and the remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera. ISO 160: 1/1000 sec at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 7:15:31am on a cloudy morning. Image #3: Sanderling Image courtesy of and copyright 2025: Vasili Chernishof Image Optimization by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Spotlighting

Chances of creating spotlit images in nature photography are rare. (Several folks liked the spotlit preening Western Gull in the last blog post.) Vasili caught this first winter Sanderling running across the black sand at Coronado Beach just as the sun poked briefly between two distant condos and lit up the small shorebird. The spotlighting is quite dramatic and I love the reflection of the sunlight off the bird’s belly onto the sand. The choice of a pano crop here was quite obvious.

This image was created on 23 January 2025 on a San Diego In-the-Field session by multiple IPT veteran Vasili Chernishof. Seated on a dirt bank, he used a Gitzo tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Canon RF 600mm f/4 L IS USM lens with the Canon Extender RF 1.4x (at 840mm) and the remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1600: 1/4000 sec at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 4:18:54pm on a sunny afternoon. Image #4: Cinnamon Teal drake in flight Image courtesy of and copyright 2025: Vasili Chernishof Image Optimization by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Ducks in Flight

Again, like yours truly, Vasili was challenged as to what lens to use for the ducks in flight at Santee as you never knew how close or how far away they would be landing, In this case, the 600 and the RF 1.4X TC was the winning combination. The teal are small, fast, and erratic fliers. Kudos to Vasili for nailing this one.

This image was created on 24 January 2025 on a San Diego In-the-Field session by multiple IPT veteran Vasili Chernishof. Seated on a dirt bank, he used the hand held Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens with the Canon Extender RF 2x, (at 483mm) and the remarkable Canon EOS R1 Mirrorless Camera. ISO 2500: 1/4000 sec at f/5.6 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 3:20:22pm on a sunny afternoon. Image #5: Lesser Scaup hen skidding to a landing Image courtesy of and copyright 2025: Vasili Chernishof Image Optimization by Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

The Landing Skid

For this one, Vasili went with his hand hold-able (for him) 200-600 rig. The splashdown pattern made the pano crop an obvious choice.

Vasili Chernishoff, unsolicited via e-mail

I wanted to thank you again for such a fantastic learning experience; The San Diego trip exceeded my expectations, and I truly appreciate everything I gained from the workshop. I’m already looking forward to several more in Florida! Vasili

Vasili will be joining me again at Stick Marsh in late March and then again at Jacksonville — end of June through early July. I look forward to continuing to guide him on his bird photography journey. And like I am, he is looking forward to the Ospreys at Sebastian Inlet next fall.

Thanks for Vasili for allowing me to share his wonderful images with you here on the blog. More soon.

Typos

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