![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/double-crested-cormorant-2966-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nFollowing are my unscientific\u00a0observations about the quality of the results I got in this series as compared to what I think I would have achieved using my 500 f\/4 with attached tc.<\/p>\n
\n- Overall\u00a0I think image quality (IQ), fine detail and\u00a0apparent sharpness were all somewhat negatively affected by this combination. But that’s to be expected and I think these results are\u00a0quite acceptable.<\/li>\n
- Images taken with this lens have a different visual “feel” to them than those taken with my 500mm. It’s hard to put a finger on precisely what it is\u00a0and I’m not saying it’s either bad or good, it’s just… different.<\/li>\n
- Autofocus is noticeably slower using this combination and that will make it more\u00a0difficult to photograph birds in flight.<\/li>\n
- For me perhaps the most\u00a0significant downside to this combo is the fact that I can\u00a0only go to f\/8 which reduces my available shutter speed. That effect can be seen in many of these cormorant shots (#3 and #4 for example)\u00a0where 1\/1250 sec just\u00a0wasn’t fast\u00a0enough to get the flapping wings sharp (at this aperture, focal length and shutter speed\u00a0it was motion blur rather than a depth of field issue). I’d rather have been at f\/6.3 which would have increased my\u00a0shutter speed significantly. Next time I’ll probably increase my ISO to\u00a0get more SS but that increases noise (I don’t like to go over ISO 800).<\/li>\n
- On\u00a0the plus side, what a dream the 100-400 is to hand hold over my monster 500mm!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
But hey, we’re really comparing apples to oranges here and in some ways that isn’t fair. Look at the prices of these two lenses – at Amazon the 100-400 is $2049 while the 500 f\/4 is a whopping $9000! In my experience we (usually) get what we pay for and in my opinion the new\u00a0100-400 is an excellent value and performs very well. And besides, when\u00a0the 100-400\u00a0isn’t used with the teleconverter many of the issues I’ve listed are mitigated.<\/p>\n
I’m very happy to have the Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM in my arsenal!<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
Please note: This post isn’t meant to be a bona fide review of the lens – it’s only my anecdotal impressions of using it in combination with the 1.4 tc one time on one bird.<\/em><\/p>\nFYI – most of these images were cropped to 50-65% of the original image.<\/em><\/p>\nI realize that all this photo-geekiness will have limited appeal for some. Hopefully the images will help to make up for it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s twelve images here but this post is really about my experience using Canon’s “new” EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens in combination with a 1.4 extender (teleconverter).<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,1905,2782],"tags":[454,2348,3293,2801,1901,1008,3297,1902,3298,2637,453,3296,739],"class_list":["post-46095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-double-crested-cormorants","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-autofocus","tag-canon-7d-mark-ii","tag-canon-ef-100-400mm-f4-5-5-6l-is-ii-usm","tag-canon-ef-500mm-f4l-is-ii-usm","tag-double-crested-cormorant","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-juvenile-going-into-adult-plumage","tag-phalacrocorax-auritus","tag-price","tag-review","tag-teleconverter","tag-using-100-400-with-1-4-extender","tag-wing-flap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/double-crested-cormorant-2954-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-bZt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/double-crested-cormorant-2914-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"double-crested-cormorant-2914-ron-dudley\\"")
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