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400mm for 10D



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 10th 04, 10:29 AM
b4
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Default 400mm for 10D

I am considering buying a 400mm telephoto for my 10D.

Which gives the best quality 400mm 5.6L or 100-400mm L IS 4.5-5.6 zoom or
even 200mm 2.8L U/2 + 2x convertor (giving f4?).

Cheers


  #2  
Old October 10th 04, 01:14 PM
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)
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b4 wrote:
I am considering buying a 400mm telephoto for my 10D.

Which gives the best quality 400mm 5.6L or 100-400mm L IS 4.5-5.6 zoom or
even 200mm 2.8L U/2 + 2x convertor (giving f4?).

Cheers


The 400mm f/5.6L is clearly better. Art Morris also rated
it the fastest autofocus telephoto lens for wildlife action.
See bulletin #140: http://www.birdsasart.com/bn140.htm
It's one of his 10 important bird photography facts,
number 6.
Personally, my 100-400 is not a real sharp lens, but others
seem to have shaper ones. Another option is the 300 f/4 L IS
(advantage over the 400 is IS), and a 1.4x TC. I use that
and it is much sharper than my 100-400. With the 300 + 1.4x,
you have 420mm f/5.6 IS. On a 1DMII or other pro bodies,
you can autofocus at f/8, so with a 2x, you get 600 mm f/8.

Roger Clark
Phots at: http://www.clarkvision.com

  #3  
Old October 10th 04, 01:49 PM
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In message ,
"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)"
wrote:

Another option is the 300 f/4 L IS
(advantage over the 400 is IS), and a 1.4x TC. I use that
and it is much sharper than my 100-400.


About the same, here. It seems my 300 is about 320 and my -400 is about
360, so the 300+TCcombo actually has a narrower FOV.
--


John P Sheehy

  #6  
Old October 10th 04, 05:30 PM
leo
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"b4" wrote in message
...
"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" wrote
in


You say the 400 / 5.6 is clearly better, and I don't doubt you, but the
review sites say:

lens - photozone/photodo/photoreview

100:400 - 3.94 / 3.6 / 4.73
400/5.6 - 3.56 / --- / 4.43
300/4 IS - 4.04 / 3.4 / 4.71

Do you think they got good 100-400's ?



I think only Photodo do systematic lens test. All other sites rely on user
reviews. For many users, the 100-400IS clearly is more versatile and would
"automatically" receive good review. I read a review comparing Canon 100-400
to Nikon 80-400 and the Canon is quite poor. It becomes comparible at f/9 to
f/11 but that's quite useless in most situations.

Many people are questioning about Photodo's rating for 300/4 IS though. It
seems to be way lower than it should really be.

If you want all around lens, by all mean, get the 100-400IS.
If you want an easy to use and sharp 300 and and quite good 420 (might even
be better than 100-400@400) with 1.4x teleconverter, get the 300/4 IS. I
like this set up.
400/5.6 is really a specialized lens. It would possibly be the sharpest lens
at 400mm when using a tripod, but without IS and at f/5.6, it's pretty tough
to use. Not recommended.


  #8  
Old October 11th 04, 04:59 PM
Bill Hilton
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400/5.6 is really a specialized lens. It would possibly be the sharpest
lens at 400mm when using a tripod, but without IS and at f/5.6, it's
pretty tough to use. Not recommended.


From:

The Canon MTF chart for the 400mm f5.6 is not all that great. The
low-contrast line for f8 never goes above 0.94, whereas the same line
for the 100-400 @ 400 is hugging the 1.0 mark. The high-contrast lines
for test lines parallel to the frame diagonal for both wide-open and f8
are the only sore spots for the 100-400 @ 400, as they drop off faster
for it. The MTFs for lines perpendicular to the diagonal are clearly in
favor of the zoom by a wide margin.


Here are the MTF charts of four of Canon's 400 mm lenses, the f/2.8 L IS (one
of the best lenses made with a near-perfect MTF graph), the 400 f/4 DO IS,
100-400 IS @ 400 and the 400 f/5.6 L ...
http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/canon_400mm.jpg ... the biggest problem with
the 1-4 is the rapid corner drop-off (into no-man's land) wide open, something
I've seen in low contrast situations too many times. The 400 f/5.6 L is pretty
close to the much more expensive 400 f/4 in performance and compares well with
several other Canon lenses not pictured that have reputations for excellence
and have similar MTF charts.

My wife has the 400 f/5.6 L and I own the 100-400 IS (we both have 500 f/4 IS
lenses which are our primary telephotos though). I've shot both of them a fair
bit. The 400 5.6 is better for flight shots on birds since the min focus
distance is a bit long and so it AF's quicker, plus IS is of no use for flight
shots (except for the specialized situation where you're panning at long
shutter speeds in IS mode 2) and is actually a hindrance since it slows AF
acquisition. However the 400 is not a good all-around lens since it's limited
to one focal length. If you have a really good shorter zoom like the 70-200
f/2.8 or f/4 L then it's a good second lens, I feel.

The 100-400 IS is more versatile since it covers a wide focal range and the IS
is very valuable in many situations. For example when we went to the Pribilof
Islands to photograph birds we took the 400 for flight shots and a 70-200 for
messing around (80% of the shots were taken with the 500's), leaving the 1-4
behind. When we went to Denali a month later we left the 400 home and took the
1-4 because many shots of bears and wolves would happen from a bus and the zoom
plus IS was very valuable in that situation.

Bill


 




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