Andrew Welsh Offline Upload & Sell: On
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I eagerly awaited the arrival of the Canon 400mm f/5.6 lens (bought right here on FM from chopstxx, thanks!!!), since it is my first purchase of an "L" series lens. After dealing with FedEx (long story) I received the package yesterday. It was well packaged, and I had bought it "used" although the previous owner never actually used it, so it was wrapped in all of it's original packaging. And well packed it was. Unwrap the outer box, remove styrofoam, pull out lens soft case from plastic bag, open lens case, pull out bubble wrapped lens, remove bubble wrap, remove plastic bag from lens. Relatively heavy (~2-3 lbs) for someone used to the kit lens and 50/1.8, but actually lightweight by super telephoto standards. I liked the off-white paint color and the newness of it all. It exhudes quality construction.
Over lunch break at work, I took it out, attached it to my Canon Rebel XT/ 350D and snapped this picture of one of the "reserved" parking spot signs next to my truck. This was at f/5.6 and pretty much at the close focus distance, about 10 feet away.
I immediately snapped one at f8 to compare the DOF. Very little difference (about 1/2"), since I'm so close.
There are birds around the parking lot at work, with a drainage pond nearby hosting Canadian geese. Nice easy targets and I could walk to about 20 yards/meters away from them.
One of the sharper images:
I even stalked a little bird in a bush next to the building and got it near the edge of the bush.. but the little guy moved while I snapped the photo. I think I shot at 1/320 sec but he was quick.
Now for the serious part. I get home and set up the tripod in the living room about 12 feet / 4m from the wall and use my US Treasury Department resolution test chart... and here are the comparisons of f/5.6 and f/8 shots with and without sharpening looking at the center and edge of the frame. NOTE: Photoshop CS spits out a warning due to some sort of currency detection system. I was unable to open these files directly in Photoshop, unless only part of the bill was in the frame. I had to use MS paint and select an area then copy-paste that area in photoshop. (Even pasting most or all of the bill image generated the warning).
I shot in RAW at ISO100, used Canon's software to convert the RAW to JPEG (and do white balancing), then cropped them in Photoshop. Awesome results wide open at 5.6. I can't wait to try it out on a star field to evaluate its astro-worthiness. Looking at these images I image it will have excellent star sharpness with little to no CA. Mirror lockup (MLU) and a shutter release cable were used, and I took 2 of each pic to test focus (and manually throwing it out of focus beforehand both in and out to test autofocus).
Shots at f/8:
I then added my Sigma DG APO 1.4x teleconverter. Apparently this lens actually tells the camera the f-stop, so autofocus didn't work and the LCD back reported f/8. When I use my sigma 70-300mm DG APO f/5.6 lens, it still reports f/5.6 when I have the TC on it and it will still autofocus (although not that effectively). The image stayed tack sharp IMO.
I then tried my $65 Bower brand 2x teleconverter (camera reported f/5.6 but autofocus just hunted in my dim indoor light) for a focal length of 800mm and effective f/11. The image was a bit softer, much noisier due to longer exposure (around 13 seconds @ ISO 100).
And finally, for grins I stacked both TC's for a focal length of 1120mm and f/16. Forced to manually focus and it was tough, but got it on one of the tries. Exposure was 15" and noise was visibly increased, but it still remained useable.
In all, I find the resolution of this lens to be excellent edge-to-edge. The USM autofocusing is super quiet and really, really fast compared to consumer lenses I've used. The lens is light enough to handhold and walk around. It's definitely easy to see why birders like this lens, especially for birds in flight (BIF). The solid build quality shows this lens will take a licking and keep on ticking.
If you are looking to step into the super telephoto market of prime focus lenses, give the 400mm f/5.6 L lens a serious look. It's a good value for the money.
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