Canon 100-400 plus Extender for safari?

StewartR

StewartR

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Does anyone have any practical experience of using a Canon 100-400 plus an Extender for safari photography?

We have a customer at www.LensesForHire.co.uk who wants to hire a 100-400, which I'm sure is a good choice, but he's not sure whether an Extender would be a good idea.

Pro: Extra reach.
Con: Lower quality, loss of autofocus (camera=350D), more changing lenses.

I think the trade-off is that the cons are probably worth tolerating if (a) the extra reach is necessary and (b) the loss of autofocus is manageable. What would you advise? 1.4x Extender? 2x Extender? Or neither?
 
100-400 SHOULD be sufficient for safari, since I've been told by someone I know who went on a safari that it was okay. If I were to use an extender, I'd use a 1.4 at most. Its a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'd want to capture it in its best quality.

Bit of a compromise between that extra reach, and quality.

You can always crop though ;)
 
StewartR said:
I think the trade-off is that the cons are probably worth tolerating if (a) the extra reach is necessary and (b) the loss of autofocus is manageable. What would you advise? 1.4x Extender? 2x Extender? Or neither?
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I don't think it works great but you kinda hit the nail on the head there with the trade off's. On a 5D, like I had on my last trip, I could MF with the 400mm 5.6 because the viewfinder is decent. On a 350 I have MF'd in the past but keepers are low and on safari you have such distance to consider and possibly haze. The viewfinder just isn't up to the job and too dark. The 100-400 is great at F8.0 but that is a pain at MF. I wouldn't bother myself. BUT the good news is a 100-400 IS L will get most of the shots you need on safari and you will only suffer really on bird or small animal type shots (other than Ostriches!) On my last trip 4 out of 6 had the 100-400 and used it maybe 80% of the time. It is the most popular safari lens as does most of what folks need ... ***' we all want a 500mm IS L.
 
Thanks folk, especially condyk. (I was hoping you'd show up.) I'll advise the customer that they're probably better off not bothering with the Extender.
 
I think it depends where the safari is too... But on a 1D, my 500 is my primary lens in East Africa (gives similar field of view to a 400 on a 1.6 crop). Somewhere like large parts of Botswana, or Kruger or parts of Namibia, I've found the scrub stops you getting such clear views and I've tended to use my 70-200 and a 1.4 as my workhorse.

I think the other thing to bear in mind is that f/8 is the widest you'll get and you'd probably want to be stopping down to f/11 for quality. For early morning and evening stuff, that is going to lead to stupidly low shutter speeds or very high ISO...
 
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