# Results with the 100-400 with a 1.4x TC?



## J.R. (Sep 21, 2013)

Has anyone used this combo? How good / bad are the results?

Cheers ... J.R.


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## ishdakuteb (Sep 21, 2013)

i do not have the answer for your question, but scott kelby does... here is the link:

http://scottkelby.com/2013/quick-update-from-last-nights-game/


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## lol (Sep 21, 2013)

Previous link is for wrong lens 

Anyway, I've used the 100-400L with Sigma 1.4x. Biggest problem I have is no usable AF (50D, 7D). This means manual focus, which I find impossible to get accurate in viewfinder, and 560mm handholding live view isn't going to end well. If you can use a tripod, I find the image quality ok. Overall hardly worth the effort over 400 and crop.

Some people claim AF success by taping over some teleconverter pins to make it appear not there, but it never locks reliably for me, if at all.


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## ishdakuteb (Sep 21, 2013)

lol said:


> Previous link is for wrong lens
> 
> Anyway, I've used the 100-400L with Sigma 1.4x. Biggest problem I have is no usable AF (50D, 7D). This means manual focus, which I find impossible to get accurate in viewfinder, and 560mm handholding live view isn't going to end well. If you can use a tripod, I find the image quality ok. Overall hardly worth the effort over 400 and crop.
> 
> Some people claim AF success by taping over some teleconverter pins to make it appear not there, but it never locks reliably for me, if at all.



oops... did not pay enough attention though, it is my bad... 100 vs 200 is a big different huh


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## J.R. (Sep 21, 2013)

lol said:


> Previous link is for wrong lens
> 
> Anyway, I've used the 100-400L with Sigma 1.4x. Biggest problem I have is no usable AF (50D, 7D). This means manual focus, which I find impossible to get accurate in viewfinder, and 560mm handholding live view isn't going to end well. If you can use a tripod, I find the image quality ok. Overall hardly worth the effort over 400 and crop.
> 
> Some people claim AF success by taping over some teleconverter pins to make it appear not there, but it never locks reliably for me, if at all.



Autofocusing shouldn't be a problem with the 5D3 at f/8 with the center point. I'm only concerned about the IQ


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## Canon1 (Sep 21, 2013)

I use a 5d3 with a 100-400 all the time. It is one of my favorite setups and I have used it extensively for wildlife, birds (including BIF) and even landscapes. 

Once they upgraded the firmware to allow AF at f8 I ran a FoCal test with the 1.4x to see what the iq results were. It took 3 test runs to get a result. The program kept telling me it could not produce an accurate result. The IQ numbers it came up with were quite poor. In fact cropping an inage without using a tc would produce a far better result then an image with using tge tc. My 1-400 is very sharp and a "good" copy. My 1.4 is a version ii and has tested excellently on my 300f2.8 and 500 f4 just fine. 

Not one to take the word of only a calibration program I took it to my favorite local haunt to photograph osprey, herons, red wings etc to give it a good field test. My conclusion is that this is an unusable combo. 

The AF is terrible. It hunts and has trouble locking onto static subjects that fill half the frame. And when it does lock on, it is not always locked on. The images that were relatively close with AF were extremely soft at all apertures. F9,11,14 would not produce usable results. The time of day was sunrise for about 3 hours after on a clear day, so I had plenty of light. 

Disappointed I ended up testing the 400f5.6 next with the 1.4x. I was actually very impressed with AF but the iq was not that great. Not horrible, but not great. 

IMO neither combo is usable. For more consistently good results I have opted to not use a tc with either lens, and then crop in post. Hope this info helps.


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## J.R. (Sep 21, 2013)

Canon1 said:


> I use a 5d3 with a 100-400 all the time. It is one of my favorite setups and I have used it extensively for wildlife, birds (including BIF) and even landscapes.
> 
> Once they upgraded the firmware to allow AF at f8 I ran a FoCal test with the 1.4x to see what the iq results were. It took 3 test runs to get a result. The program kept telling me it could not produce an accurate result. The IQ numbers it came up with were quite poor. In fact cropping an inage without using a tc would produce a far better result then an image with using tge tc. My 1-400 is very sharp and a "good" copy. My 1.4 is a version ii and has tested excellently on my 300f2.8 and 500 f4 just fine.
> 
> ...



Thanks ... this sounds exactly what I expected but did not want to hear!


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## Don Haines (Sep 21, 2013)

Canon1 said:


> I use a 5d3 with a 100-400 all the time. It is one of my favorite setups and I have used it extensively for wildlife, birds (including BIF) and even landscapes.
> 
> Once they upgraded the firmware to allow AF at f8 I ran a FoCal test with the 1.4x to see what the iq results were. It took 3 test runs to get a result. The program kept telling me it could not produce an accurate result. The IQ numbers it came up with were quite poor. In fact cropping an inage without using a tc would produce a far better result then an image with using tge tc. My 1-400 is very sharp and a "good" copy. My 1.4 is a version ii and has tested excellently on my 300f2.8 and 500 f4 just fine.
> 
> ...


This is similar to my experience. I tried the 100-400 with a 1.4X teleconverter on a 60D. I found that there was more detail on a cropped picture without the teleconverter..... You really need a great lens to get good results from a teleconverter. It works well with the 70-200's and I am told it works well with the version 2 big whites...


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 21, 2013)

I've used mine with a 1.4X MK II, a 2X MK II, and both combined. With a 1.4X, its quite reasonable for a old lens. Its difficult to get sharp images as the focal lengths get longer just because of vibration. No ordinary tripod can hold it perfectly still, and shutter speeds get slower with longer focal lengths.
All the shots were taken with the lens wide open, that's how a person would likely use it to keep ISO down and shutter speed up.

Here is a photo of Mt Spokane from my backyard with a 50mm lens on my 5D MK II. Its about 7.5 miles away. Its the white peak just to the right of center partially hidden by the tree.









With 100-400L and no TC







With 100-400L and 1.4X TC







With 100-400mmL and 2X MK TC








With 1.4X and 2X TC's Stacked.


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## J.R. (Oct 25, 2013)

Hi Guys,

I purchased the 1.4x TC and made some test shots earlier this morning. The ones that I liked are posted below. These are cropped from the center of the frame.


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

I also could not get the 100-400 to calibrate with 1.4xTC III and Focal. With the best manual calibration of AFMA, the results were no better than uprezzing 1.4x with PS. The autofocus is poor. All on 5DIII.

Mt Spokane, what is yours like compared with uprezzing 1.4x?


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## J.R. (Oct 25, 2013)

I wanted to get a supertele later this year but the purchase has been set back by a few months. I was not expecting much from the combo but it performed reasonably OK and I feel that I will be able to manage to shoot the duck migration this winter. 

I'm wondering whether it would be a smarter idea to get a 2x TC as well. I could use it on the 70-200 II and get almost similar results as the 100-400 while getting the 560mm reach on the 100-400 + 1.4TC mounted on the 5D3. 

BTW, I didn't find AF to be too much of a problem - but then, maybe I was not expecting much anyway


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

The TDP tests of the 100-400mm with the and without the 1.4xTC appear to show that the 1.4xTC lowers IQ significantly. However, these tests are not really right for what we want. Bryan uses the 1.4xTC set up 1.4x further away so the chart fills the whole screen. What we want to know is what the image looks like from the same distance away, and also the chart filling only part of the centre of the screen so we can see more easily the fine detail of the images. So, I took some photos of the standard chart (standard 600 dpi printout, not the high resolution) in September, from the same distance for three combinations:
Top: 5DIII + 300mm f/2.8 II + 1.4X TC III at f/4 @420 mm
Middle: 5DIII + 100-400mm at f/5.6
Bottom: 5DIII + 100-400mm + 1.4X TC III at f/8 @550mm.
In the next post I'll show just the very centres further away, at the limits of resolution.
All are 100% crops, with no sharpening or noise reduction other than what comes out of RAW.

There is not much difference on adding the TC


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

I moved to about twice the distance so the centre circle were only partly resolvable. These are 100% crops, but the pixels of the shot without TC were increased by 1.4x to give the same "resolution" as with the TC. Judge for yourself. Is it worth losing a stop and spoiling AF by adding the TC? (My lens is sharpest bare at f/11, similar to as found by SLRgear.
Top = bare lens x 1.4 using PhotoShop
Bottom = lens + 1.4xTC


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## J.R. (Oct 25, 2013)

AlanF said:


> I moved to about twice the distance so the centre circle were only partly resolvable. These are 100% crops, but the pixels of the shot without TC were increased by 1.4x to give the same "resolution" as with the TC. JUsge for yourself. Is it worth losing a stop and spoiling AF by adding the TC? (My lens is sharpest bare at f/11, similar to as found by SLRgear.
> Top = bare lens x 1.4n using PhotoShop
> Bottom = lens + 1.4xTC



OK. So basically upping the resolution in photoshop will result in almost a same image as using the TC  

Just out of curiosity AlanF, how does the center resolve with the 300mm f/2.8 + 2x TC? The 300mm f/2.8 is what I plan to get next.


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

J.R. said:


> AlanF said:
> 
> 
> > I moved to about twice the distance so the centre circle were only partly resolvable. These are 100% crops, but the pixels of the shot without TC were increased by 1.4x to give the same "resolution" as with the TC. JUsge for yourself. Is it worth losing a stop and spoiling AF by adding the TC? (My lens is sharpest bare at f/11, similar to as found by SLRgear.
> ...



The 300mm f/2.8 II + 2x TC III is superb. Unless the subject is too close, I always use the x2 in preference to the 1.4. Everyone who has the combination in CR praises it. The version 1 lens is not as good, by all accounts. The focussing is also very snappy on the 5DIII, but not the 7D.


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

Maybe this helps. I don't know the quantitative analysis of data from FoCal. It spews out pdfs with images of the target on them plus a score. Here are crops from the pdfs plus scores from tests I did to find the sharpest aperture for the lenses on my 5DIII, all at the same distance. I have pasted in the image at the widest aperture and the sharpest (it is the same for the 600mm at f/5.6). Although the Focal score for the 300mm + 2xTC is lower than for the 300mm bare and + 1.4xTC, it gives the best image of small far away subjects because of its greater length.

Perhaps Neuro could comment?


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## Dylan777 (Oct 25, 2013)

J.R. said:


> AlanF said:
> 
> 
> > I moved to about twice the distance so the centre circle were only partly resolvable. These are 100% crops, but the pixels of the shot without TC were increased by 1.4x to give the same "resolution" as with the TC. JUsge for yourself. Is it worth losing a stop and spoiling AF by adding the TC? (My lens is sharpest bare at f/11, similar to as found by SLRgear.
> ...



JR,
Should I pull trigger on this baby before you ;D


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## AlanF (Oct 25, 2013)

Oops, I screwed up in the earlier posting by having uploaded the 100-400 f/5.6 twice.
Hers it is with the extender to give 560mm f/8. These images have to be downloaded for comparisons.
The bottom is without the extender again.


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## docsmith (Oct 25, 2013)

I played with the 1.4x TC on my 100-400L on the 5DIII in February before the 5DIII could AF. My conclusion was that photos cropped in post had as much or more detail. I was not impressed with this combination and sent the 1.4 TC back. I've been using the 5DIII and the 100-400L together however, and they are a great pair.

BTW....I am another one looking at the 300 f/2.8....almost pulled the trigger last night...


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## J.R. (Oct 25, 2013)

Dylan777 said:


> J.R. said:
> 
> 
> > AlanF said:
> ...



LOL ... Probably you will. Mine is scheduled for Feb / Mar.


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## J.R. (Oct 25, 2013)

docsmith said:


> I played with the 1.4x TC on my 100-400L on the 5DIII in February before the 5DIII could AF. My conclusion was that photos cropped in post had as much or more detail. I was not impressed with this combination and sent the 1.4 TC back. I've been using the 5DIII and the 100-400L together however, and they are a great pair.
> 
> BTW....I am another one looking at the 300 f/2.8....almost pulled the trigger last night...



I'm keeping the 1.4x TC. for now, I'll probably be using it with the 70-200 II and, in a pinch, with the 135L. 

Anyhow, the TCs will be essential once I get the 300f/2.8 II ... So no point returning it, I might get the 2x in the meantime


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## Skulker (Oct 25, 2013)

J.R. said:


> docsmith said:
> 
> 
> > I played with the 1.4x TC on my 100-400L on the 5DIII in February before the 5DIII could AF. My conclusion was that photos cropped in post had as much or more detail. I was not impressed with this combination and sent the 1.4 TC back. I've been using the 5DIII and the 100-400L together however, and they are a great pair.
> ...



I have 878 images taken with the 100/400 + 1.4TC, so it gets some use but its not my top lens. Its quite capable but wont take the best images.

Now turning to the 300 f2.8    It works fine with the TC both 1.4 and 2. These will take the best images and are my top lenses.


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