PetKal Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
That question has arisen many times on all Canon related photography fora, and although any sort of a consensus is not likely to be reached, the combo 600 f4 IS MkII + 1.4xTC appears to be the most popular option which would give one close to 800mm FL.
Over the years I have done my own testing and real shooting with a variety of long lenses, and although I have my own lens ranking as well as favourites, I have decided to do another comparison this week on the same type of targets, (big heron pijuns), under similar environmental conditions.
The lenses/combos I am looking to re-test now are as follows, all done on 1DX:
Pt. (1) 600 II + 1.4xTC
Pt. (2) 800
Pt. (3) 400 II + 2xTC III
Pt. (4) 500 II + 1.4xTC III
Pt. (5) 400 DO II + 2xTC III
-----------------------------------
Although 500 II + 1.4xTC III is handicapped by a 100mm FL shortfall wrt 800mm, I am including it in this evaluation because the lens makes up for that shortfall in other ways.
Also, I was not going to look at any f/8 combos, however, an exception is made with 400 DO II because the lens is very light, and it has a fine performance in its bare form.
After all lens (combos) are presented with sample pictures in five parts, I'd like to post a little summary of how I see those five 800mm +/- options, i.e., their main strengths and weaknesses.
What is IMPORTANT to note is that this sort of evaluations have a significant subjective component. Also, by doing the same target type under very similar environmental conditions, by one and the same photographer, makes the comparison a bit more consistent. As a counter example, it would be of no use to compare my 600 + 1.4xTC shots of egrets with, say, Tim Kuhn's shots of GBH or Herb Houghton shots of eagles taken with their 800Ls. Such cross comparisons would be entirely meaningless.
Here is a selection of shots taken with 600 II + 1.4xTC III (on 1DX, handheld)....Pt. (1)
Edited on Sep 03, 2015 at 04:01 PM · View previous versions
|