ccougar Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Last week I rented a Canon EF 400mm F4L DO IS USM lens from borrowlens.com in San Carlos, CA. I am getting up in years and my EF 500mm F4L is getting a little heavy for hand holding in the field. My primary interest is birds and over a three day period I tested this lens with both a 1DX and a 7D body. The reviews of this lens are all over the place, some very good and some very bad. I wanted to see for myself what this lens would do. I found it to be an excellent lens in most respects with only a couple of drawbacks, one which is a deal breaker for what I would be using it for.
First of all, it is a very sharp lens. I don’t see what all the complaints are about in this respect. While it is not as sharp as my 500/4, it is slightly sharper than my Canon 100-400mm and on a par with my EF 70-300L. Forget about comparing it to a EF 300mm F2.8L since no lens can meet that test. It is true that the contrast is a little lower than other Canon L-Series lens, but it is easily corrected in post processing. This was not a problem.
The lens is a dream to carry in the field. It comes with a wide shoulder strap and with a 1-Series body attached, it is perfectly balanced when slung over one shoulder. It is much lighter than it looks. As expected, build quality is excellent and even the old-style IS worked well.
It focuses very quickly on both the 1DX and the 7D - as long as an extender is not used. This is where the deal-breaker comes in. With a 1.4x extender attached, the AF speed decreases to a point where the lens is practically unusable for acquiring birds in flight. I don’t know why there is such a dramatic decrease in focusing speed. My EF 500/4 doesn’t have this problem, but the DO certainly does. This would not be an issue if it was only used with the 7D. The 1.6 image factor of that body would give an equivalent focal length of 640mm which I find just about right for birds in flight. For the 1DX however, an extender is needed which kills the performance of this lens. Sharpness is OK, but it just won’t focus fast enough.
I liked this lens and hated to send it back. I just read that Canon is coming out with an updated version. With all the improvements promised in the press release, this may turn out to be a very popular lens. I look forward to trying one out.
Below are a couple of shots taken with the 400 DO that I rented.
EF 400mm f4L DO IS USM ISO 500 1/5000 @ f/5.6
EF 400mm f4L DO IS USM ISO 500 1/5000 @ f/6.3
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