Thanks Scott. It also (obviously) fits very nicely in the Pelican 1510 roller case I use for these lenses (what the lenses are sitting on in the photo). The 400 and 600 are each a tight squeeze due to their diameter and can't be packed with the front cover (which didn't bother me much). With the 200-400 being much more like a 500/4 in proportion, the lid closes without any pressure on the lens. I'm really looking forward to using it for field sports.
Playing around with it at the computer, the 1.4 swings into place very easily. It has a bit of a 'peak' to the motion, where it feels like due to some spring resistance, you need to push/pull the lever to about the halfway point, where it will then slide into place on it's own. Therefore, it's not necessary to consciously have to move the lever the full distance in either direction to ensure proper placement. The optics of the 1.4x are surprisingly small and narrow in diameter (its lens elements).
A few other observations:
The lens does not appear to be parfocal; if you set focus at 200mm it will be soft at 400 at the same subject distance, though going 400->200 seems to be slightly better, perhaps due to better AF precision at the longer focal length.
Early observations seem to indicate that the lens does hold focus when switching the TC in or out of position, both if focus was set with or without the TC in place.
A lower profile tripod foot might allow more aggressive zoom swings when hand holding. As it is now with the stock foot, I can generally swing about halfway through the zoom range before having to readjust my finger position. With it being only a 2x zoom, the zoom action in the viewfinder is not all that dramatic. Due to the long zoom ring travel distance (appears to be about 90 degrees), it should make it easy to very precisely set a desired focal length at the expense of quickly racking from one end to the other. So far I think this should be OK for sports action where subject to camera distance generally does not change extremely quickly unless very close, at which point this lens will probably be too long anyway, but we'll see.
Paolo: Unfortunately I don't have the v.3 2x... as I don't really do much *extreme* long lens work. I'm sure Peter will be able to address this.
Cross posting from another thread. Not sure which one we are sticking with...
First up for me i am posting some comparisons between the CANON 200-400 and the SIGMA 12-300 with the TC attached.
Sorry that I do not have a CAT. The lovely tessa will fill in for one.
SIGMA is on the LEFT and CANON on the right. Here we are at F4, ISO 400 and 400mm for both. The detail in the CANON is already evident. Working on more now.
Scott Stoness wrote:
Where is PetKal - he is quiet. Maybe working on some samples too.
Scott
My sources say he has the van backed upto the Canon warehouse and the Piguns have been released and are in the building searching for your 200-400 or was it mine. Either way Peter's trained Piguns will make us drop down the list and will birds in flight him to the top.
May 31, 2013 at 12:42 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
So I just got the call from my dealer! My copy of the 200-400 is waiting to be picked up, and I will do that later today. They did only get one copy, and it came today rather than next week like they thought it would. So atleast one will exist in a customers hands in the US this week. We do not want Canada to get to far ahead, do we. I will post proof of existence and initial observations later today.
Please share with us your 200-400 with the 2x TC III attached + 1.4x built-in engaged.
