When I was looking to buy a birding lens the main credentials were at least 400mm focal length, Good IQ and light enough to be able to carry around for hours upon end as I do a lot of walking and get my bird shots as and when an opportunity crops up.
The 400mm f5.6 fitted the bill as longer reach lenses were too heavy and faster lenses were at least twice the price and again, too heavy. I have had this lens for almost eighteen months now and it still surprises me with the great results that it produces.
The lens has a nice feel and balance on both my 350D and 30D bodies and gives great colour rendition, contrast and saturation. It is very light (possibly the lightest 400mm lens around) and easily hand holdable. The trick to getting sharp shots from hand holding this non IS lens is to make sure you have a fast shutter speed I can get sharp shots with 1/500 sec but aim for at least 1/1000 sec, these shutter speeds are obtainable by upping the ISO to suit. I find relatively little noise on 30D right up to ISO 800. Of course you can always use a Monopod to get sharp shots down to about 1/125 sec and with a good tripod and head almost anything will be sharp.
Auto focus on this lens is lightening fast and this coupled with its lightness makes it one of the very best flight shot lenses around. The lens has a switch to allow focusing at 3.5 meters to infinity or a slightly faster 8.5 meters to infinity.
This lens is pin sharp wide open. I have tried tests by stopping the lens down but can tell no difference at all in IQ from wide open. The only time I stop the lens down now is when I want more DOF.
Minimum focus distance is 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). You can reduce this to around 2 metres by using extension tubes. I am always amazed at the detail that can be recorded by this lens in something small like a butterfly or dragonfly from 11.5 feet.
This lens takes a teleconverter well although AF will be lost on a non series 1 body unless you tape the pins. I regularly use the lens with a 1.4tc (gives a 560mm focal length) hand held with very little IQ loss from the bare lens. Trying to AF at f8 is very variable depending on light and contrast sometimes the AF will lock on right away but other time the lens will hunt, this is where the full time manual focusing comes in useful by roughly manually focusing and then letting the AF finish the job. I should mention that for AF with the pins taped I have had a lot more success with the 30D than the 350D for some reason (better AF system?). Of course Canon would not recommend taping the pins to fool the AF but it seems to be a widespread practice. With a tripod and manual focusing I have used a 2x converter with good results and even got good shots by stacking a 2x and 1.4x converters which gives 1120mm focal length.
Other nice points are the retractable built-in metal lens hood and the supplied tripod collar which can be attached/detached without taking the lens off the camera.
For anyone that wants to travel light this is IMO an ideal birding lens. The only way I would upgrade from this lens would be if Canon bought out an IS version but even then providing that the weight was not significantly more.
The 400mm f5.6 fitted the bill as longer reach lenses were too heavy and faster lenses were at least twice the price and again, too heavy. I have had this lens for almost eighteen months now and it still surprises me with the great results that it produces.
The lens has a nice feel and balance on both my 350D and 30D bodies and gives great colour rendition, contrast and saturation. It is very light (possibly the lightest 400mm lens around) and easily hand holdable. The trick to getting sharp shots from hand holding this non IS lens is to make sure you have a fast shutter speed I can get sharp shots with 1/500 sec but aim for at least 1/1000 sec, these shutter speeds are obtainable by upping the ISO to suit. I find relatively little noise on 30D right up to ISO 800. Of course you can always use a Monopod to get sharp shots down to about 1/125 sec and with a good tripod and head almost anything will be sharp.
Auto focus on this lens is lightening fast and this coupled with its lightness makes it one of the very best flight shot lenses around. The lens has a switch to allow focusing at 3.5 meters to infinity or a slightly faster 8.5 meters to infinity.
This lens is pin sharp wide open. I have tried tests by stopping the lens down but can tell no difference at all in IQ from wide open. The only time I stop the lens down now is when I want more DOF.
Minimum focus distance is 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). You can reduce this to around 2 metres by using extension tubes. I am always amazed at the detail that can be recorded by this lens in something small like a butterfly or dragonfly from 11.5 feet.
This lens takes a teleconverter well although AF will be lost on a non series 1 body unless you tape the pins. I regularly use the lens with a 1.4tc (gives a 560mm focal length) hand held with very little IQ loss from the bare lens. Trying to AF at f8 is very variable depending on light and contrast sometimes the AF will lock on right away but other time the lens will hunt, this is where the full time manual focusing comes in useful by roughly manually focusing and then letting the AF finish the job. I should mention that for AF with the pins taped I have had a lot more success with the 30D than the 350D for some reason (better AF system?). Of course Canon would not recommend taping the pins to fool the AF but it seems to be a widespread practice. With a tripod and manual focusing I have used a 2x converter with good results and even got good shots by stacking a 2x and 1.4x converters which gives 1120mm focal length.
Other nice points are the retractable built-in metal lens hood and the supplied tripod collar which can be attached/detached without taking the lens off the camera.
For anyone that wants to travel light this is IMO an ideal birding lens. The only way I would upgrade from this lens would be if Canon bought out an IS version but even then providing that the weight was not significantly more.