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Canon 7D - experience with 100 - 400 lens? (1 Viewer)

Have used the 7D for a few months, mainly bird photography and am impressed.

I wonder what experience is available concerning the use of this camera with 100-400 lens plus X 1.4 converter.

Have seen quite a few old reports going back to 2008 or earlier and doesn't seem straightforward.

Can anyone offer advice?
 
John

I've not used the 1.4 with the 7D as you loose auto focus. I have however used the 100-400L with a 1.4 TC on the Canon 1 D Mrk II N and I'm quite satisfied with the results. I'm sure on the 7D the results will be very good with the limitation being how well you can manage to manually focus which in turn I guess boils down to how obliging the bird is to enable manual focus.

Rgds
Andrew
 
I've tried it a few times. The AF is very hit and miss although it works quite well with liveview. I did the taping trick.

To be honest the hit in IQ is IMHO not worth it, you'll get a better image with cropping. Others may have had better luck than me, I dunno.

The 1.4 T/C is however very useful for video. Here you're using liveview all the time and AF is irrelevant. Here's a video I took last weekend using a 7D/100-400/1.4 T/C. All the stills I took of the same bird with the same combo have been long since binned
 
Great video, HokkaidoStu. Did you use the inbuilt microphone or an auxiliary one as the sound quality was excellent?

Mike
 
I've not tried the 1.4TC, but would hate to give up AF. Stu's video is excellent and inspires me to try the video function on my 7D. I would also like to know if he used the internal mike(s) or an external one.
 
Great video, HokkaidoStu. Did you use the inbuilt microphone or an auxiliary one as the sound quality was excellent?

Mike
Thanks for the kind comment, no I used the internal mic only.

Here's another video with the 1.4 T/C I took yesterday.

For the OP I've attached a still taken of the same bird with a T/C. No cropping, just resized to 900x600. Shots taken without the T/C and cropped were better.
 

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My 2 cents..........I use this set up and have recently taped the pins to get AF.
Won't comment on any IQ loss but I find the AF is so unpredictable as to make it useless unless the bird, like a Norwegian Blue, is going to be there some time.
Robin
 
I've never used the 100-400 and 1.4X with my 7D but I've had reasonable results with my 50D when using a tripod and Live View (Live AF or manual AF). I think if you really need that extra reach then tripod shooting is viable.

For hand held shooting I'd personally give it a miss on the 50D/7D and anything else not designed to work properly (i.e. AF) with that combination. After all, shooting at 560mm, hand held, when you're at f/8 maximum, and already into diffraction softening on the 7D, when you can't AF properly - just how much point is there to pushing your luck that far? With the trade offs between ISO, aperture and shutter speed I just can't see any value in it. Certainly I've stopped taping the pins in order to fool the camera. On a tripod, where you don't need fast shutter speeds, can keep the ISO low, and can AF accurately, if slowly, then I see some merit.

I get decent enough results when using the 100-400 + 1.4X with my 1D3, but again it's a combination I use sparingly, and I don't think I've used the combination for shooting any birdy action. Big, predictable bikes at Brands Hatch, yes, BIF, no.

Here's an unedited 100% crop from my 50D at 560mm, shot from a tripod with Live View and Live AF....
 

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Just not worth it trying to get the combo to work with a TC. Nothing to do with the camera it is the F5.6, need F4 or lower for a TC to work fine.
 
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