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Agreed Ben, I have shot hand held with my 300/2.8 and 400/2.8 DO all day for either wildlife or sports, the 400/2.8 DO is sensationally balanced, especially with the 1D mk3 on the rear end of it... the 300 seems heavier, even though they are similar size and weight...
I personally don't need to depreciate these toys (as they are for me, being that I dont earn money from photography in any way shape or form..) for me, These toys bring happiness, as they allow me to capture the the photos I want to capture in my hobby... I love photographing birds in flight, I love photographing animals that generally don't appreciate someone in their personal space, so my long lenses to me, were worth every cent they cost me... And to Ian Robinson, Untill you've tried to capture a raptor diving into a lake to catch a fish at 150m ~ 200m range with your manual focus 300/2.8 Tamron, don't compare it to the 300/2.8L... This thing is pure lightning... As bert said, at wide open F/2.8 you can reliably focus on a spider web at sompe pretty extreme distances, you can easily focus, and maintain focus through a burst of shots on a car coming towards you at 200+ kmph.. Whilst for some uses, the 300/2.8 tamron may produce good images, it will not compare to the Canon L glass in every respect.. For some time I had the Tokina AT-X Pro 300mm F/2.8 and thought it was the bees knees... I had the opportunity to use a friends Canon L version of the same for a day out at queensland raceway and that very same day I started saving for my own...
Even the Nikkor 300/2.8 doesn't touch the Canon..
We're all happy for you that you got something that does what you want for much less than the canon version. Until you demand from your lens what I demand from mine every time it gets used, you won't need to know the differences between your tamron and my canon 300/2.8.
In my hobbies, price is generally not a factor I consider. High price just means a longer wait before I get it... Astronomy being the only difference, I will never pay $20k+ for an RCOS telescope unless I win a massive amount of money... A $10,000 refractor and a 10~15k mount are not out of the question though... Why? when I could get very similar results from a 3.5k refractor and a 5k mount? Because I can. Because I want to... I don't feel the need to justify every purchase I make, count every cent that goes into my hobbies or think to myself, "where can I skimp on something and get similar results" I pick what I want, add up the total cost, then work my butt off to afford it...
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