Canon 70-200 f2.8 or 100-400 f4

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Karen
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Hi there,

I've been researching for ages now between these 2 lenses and can't make my mind up, so wondered if anyone can help me make a decision.

I'm wanting to do some bird photography, maybe wildlife as well and have had a go with a friend's 70-200 with an extender, it is pretty amazing. But I've compared the 2 in Jessops and contrary to what I've read, the 100-400 is actually lighter and I like the ease of moving the lens in and out rather than the conventional twisting. But the 100-400 only goes to f4.5-5.6, I'd be getting an extender as well if I got this lens, so that would drop me another stop or two I understand?

I'm thinking if I get the 400 + extender, I could get up to 800, whereas with the 70-200 I'd only get up to 400, Also, the 400 is cheaper, but will the quality of the photos be less because it's not an f2.8?

Any help/advice would be much appreciated

thanks
Karen
 
firstly, which 70-200 is it you're talking about? (there are a few)

The 70-200 f/2.8 IS mark II is the only one people recommend using a 2x converter on, and that's a heft lot more expensive than the 100-400 before you even get the 2x, but the quality with the 2x is supposed to nearly equal the 100-400. I don't see any reason to spend the extra on the lens if you're only ever really going to use it with the 2x, 70-200 is never going to be enough for birds.

I wouldn't bother putting an extender on the 100-400 though, it would become f/11 with no AF which just isn't going to be usable in most situations shooting birds.

Not trying to make this too complicated, but two other lenses I would consider for your purposes are the 400mm f/5.6 L prime and the sigma 50-500 OS. The prime with focus faster and is sharper than any of the zooms but lacks IS and the flexibility (though for birds I doubt you'll ever really be wanting to zoom out). A fair few people call this an ideal birding lens because of it's light weight, focus speed and IQ. The 50-500 also gets excellent reviews. It's bigger, heavier and 1/3 of a stop slower at the long end than the 100-400, but IQ is in and around the same ball park*, it has a more recent OS system and more flexibility in the focal length.

*you'll have to make up your own mind about that one. I've seen comparisons and anecdotal evidence saying, they're equal or X is sharper than Y or Y is sharper than X. All I can say for sure is that neither should disappoint for IQ, you'll find lots of happy owners of both.
 
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I've got a Kenko Pro300 DGX 1.4x converter and that will still retain AF with a 100-400 even though it makes it an f8 and the IQ is still very good even then. It would be a MF only with a 2x converter though and at f11 it's not really workable in most situations. I did try a 2x converter on my 100-400 for some shots of the moon and they came out very good.
I bought a Sigma 150-500 OS in january and the IQ of that is excellent and the OS is better than the IS on the Canon IMO. It's quite heavy although you do get used to it after a while. I've also got a 70-200 2.8 IS L mk1 which works very well with my 1.4x converter, but I've not tried it with a 2x.
It really does depend on your budget and preference and I would suggest asking around locally to see if anyone has one which you could borrow to try first.
 
As mentioned by squishy unless its the 70-200mm f2.8 IS MKII and 2x TC MKIII then forget that combination, been there don't that on the MKI version, even with a 1.4x TC and its rubbish.

As for TC on the 100-400mm again with the canon TCs only manual focus unless you have a 1D series camera. I know people continue to mention, well my kenko TC works fine with the lens and I can still autofocus, you may well be able to, but it will damage the focus motor, because I bet the lens hunts (trying to obtain focus) and that will definitely damage the lens in time.

For the money the sigma 50-500mm f4.5-6.3 OS seems to get the wildlife togs seal of approval as an affordable wildlife lens, otherwise you into prime territory and that's big $$$$
 
Thanks for the advice, yes it was the 70-200 f/2.8 L + x2 extender.
Can you tell me why the 100-400 will lose AF if used with an extender?

I haven't looked at the 400 f/4.5 prime lens as because I'm new to photography, I don't really understand how they work and I'm used to being able to zoom in and out if
I need to, plus, I'm assuming it would be an awful plot more expensive?

Karen
 
The teleconverter loses light like you say, and AF sensors require a certain amount of light to reliably AF, so canon cut off AF at anything slower than f/5.6 max aperture (except on the 1D series models where the centre point can AF down to f/8 max).

There's nothing unusual about how primes work compared to zooms. If anything they're just simpler. If you intend to shoot birds, trust me you won't be wanting to zoom out very often at all. Bird photography requires getting very close (even with a big lens), a lot of the time you won't be as close as you want to be for the picture in your mind.

The 400 f/5.6L costs around the same as the 100-400, usually a bit cheaper. You won't find a sharper, faster focussing lens until you start dropping £3k+ on one of the massive super-teles.
 
Thanks for explaining that to me Squishy, that's really helpful :-)
 
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