100-400mm plus 2x Teleconverter = Overkill?

[Overread]

Maybe I am dumb but if I go up to f/11 the camera focuses just fine.

How are you going up to f11?

Remember the aperture you set in the camera isn't applied until you take the photo, even then the aperture blades open fully between each shot in a burst. So the AF sensors always see the light with the aperture blades fully open. So you can set the aperture to whatever you want for a shot and the only thing that matters is the maximum aperture for the lens.

However, as said, sometimes certain combos or 3rd party options won't report correctly so the camera won't "see" the aperture drop. Of course once you go beyond the cameras limits the AF speed and accuracy drops off very fast and becomes increasingly more prone to hunt in anything but very good strong light.

Note that the liveview mode tends to be better, and indeed even on cameras like the 7D which caps AF at f5.6 the live-view caps at f8 instead.

 

[Tailgunner]

Note that the liveview mode tends to be better,.

I have read where people did better in Live view, why is this?

 

[runnah]

I have read where people did better in Live view, why is this?

Oo I can answer this! When taking night time tripod shots I can use the magnifying button to aide in manual focusing.

 

[runnah]

How are you going up to f11? Remember the aperture you set in the camera isn't applied until you take the photo, even then the aperture blades open fully between each shot in a burst. So the AF sensors always see the light with the aperture blades fully open. So you can set the aperture to whatever you want for a shot and the only thing that matters is the maximum aperture for the lens. However, as said, sometimes certain combos or 3rd party options won't report correctly so the camera won't "see" the aperture drop. Of course once you go beyond the cameras limits the AF speed and accuracy drops off very fast and becomes increasingly more prone to hunt in anything but very good strong light. Note that the liveview mode tends to be better, and indeed even on cameras like the 7D which caps AF at f5.6 the live-view caps at f8 instead.

I think I understand.

 

[Didereaux]

Well, am lacking a few important details. A project across thecross water, a mile plus away, and 500mm just barely adequate. What is missing is the actual subject. A road project, a building? A rare tiny bird? If it is a construction project you can easily calculate the focal length needed to fill a given frame size if you know the size of the subject and the distance. So with nothing of value to go on I will comment on your proposed equipment list. I have both a FF Canon 6D, and crop T2i, and a 100-400 IS USM L, and a Canon 2x extender. That lens with extender gives excellent results on both cameras. Equivalent 800mm on the 6D, and around 11-1200mm on the crop.

The structure is about 180ft high, width I don't know.

Okay, now I got it. What you need is a SPOTTING scope (a top end one with an adapter for your camera. These are the smallish scopes used in bird/wildlife, and for spotting long-range shooting. A really good scope will run in the $2-3K range, and adapters are available for all major camera bodies. An acquaintance of mine uses this setup Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece for shooting birds at looong distances, tack sharp.. The light gathering ability with these scopes is nothing short of amazing. This is EXACTLY the set up that is many times used for the type of shots you are considering.

 

[Overread]

digiscoping can be a good method, but at the same time remember that scopes are not designed to reflect light for a camera, the optical quality that you get will thus be potentially less than on a lens setup. It might be tack sharp from the light, but the optics might not reflect to give a sharp result, or you might get a lot of abberations or colour fringing. It's a viable option, but at the same time chances are you'd have to spend as much on a really good scope as you would on a good lens.

 

[Didereaux]

digiscoping can be a good method, but at the same time remember that scopes are not designed to reflect light for a camera, the optical quality that you get will thus be potentially less than on a lens setup. It might be tack sharp from the light, but the optics might not reflect to give a sharp result, or you might get a lot of abberations or colour fringing. It's a viable option, but at the same time chances are you'd have to spend as much on a really good scope as you would on a good lens.

Hmmmm, Take a look at some of this guys work (all done with the Howa), and then tell us about light problems. Remember these are TOP end scopes not your Wally-world Simms.
he is older than even I, and so shots from the road, anyone familiar with photographing birds will recognize that to get most of these shots even with a 300mm you almost have to be sitting on the bird. This setup has one absolute necessity...a HEAVY, stable tripod. Don't even think of trying it on some hiking weight tripod. Other than that I would ask when a piece of glass in front of film, or sensor becomes something other than a lens? Look at the exif info on these pics and determine if that scope has light problems on a camera.
Joseph Kennedy's Photo Galleries at pbase.com

 

[Overread]

Must say I'm impressed with the results, although unless I missed it there are no fullsized versions for view and websize can be forgiving in some ways,; but still very impressive.

He's using a £2k set of optics so that is certainly helping; as for when glass is anything but a lens the important thing to realise is that a sensor resolves information differently to human eyes. As a result equipment specialised for optical view with human eyes need not be specially corrected for sensor resolution. This might simply mean that the differences only appear at larger print sizes.

Of course when you're at £2K of glass and that glass has no IS and no AF motors or elements to move that, of course, cuts down on costs so it might well be equivalent to much higher cost camera optics. I've also no idea how bit the image size is that he's getting, might be that the images he displays are already cropped and edited to remove shadowing in the corners (if memory serves me many digiscops don't project an image designed to cover a whole DSLR sensor).

It's an interesting area and one I've not really looked as much into (only digiscope I have is good but a lower end cheaper model - perfectly serviceable for eyes but not the camera)

 

[Didereaux]

Must say I'm impressed with the results, although unless I missed it there are no fullsized versions for view and websize can be forgiving in some ways,; but still very impressive.

He's using a £2k set of optics so that is certainly helping; as for when glass is anything but a lens the important thing to realise is that a sensor resolves information differently to human eyes. As a result equipment specialised for optical view with human eyes need not be specially corrected for sensor resolution. This might simply mean that the differences only appear at larger print sizes.

Of course when you're at £2K of glass and that glass has no IS and no AF motors or elements to move that, of course, cuts down on costs so it might well be equivalent to much higher cost camera optics. I've also no idea how bit the image size is that he's getting, might be that the images he displays are already cropped and edited to remove shadowing in the corners (if memory serves me many digiscops don't project an image designed to cover a whole DSLR sensor).

It's an interesting area and one I've not really looked as much into (only digiscope I have is good but a lower end cheaper model - perfectly serviceable for eyes but not the camera)

I've shot next to the guy and he gets about the equivqalent of 12-1400mm so, say an6-800 with a 2x on it. He does not do much cropping except on the really tiny birds. Most\ly he'll just try and fill the frame, and maybe crop out a power line or something. He does however get heavy handed on the RAW sharpening...no fur or feather has uniform 'frost around it! I kid him about that...a lot!

I am with you though on the cost of that thing. @ around $3K USD it's out of my range, but it does hang in there with the big +$10K glass.

 

[runnah]

Well that was a flop. Almost unusable short of being in a rocksteady tripod. Even with a monopod it was hard to manually focus.

On a side note, not overly impressed with the 24-70 2.8 mkii.

 

[Overread]

I'm surprised - all I've heard of it is that its a great lens.

Also what combo did you try that was a flop?

 

[Derrel]

Yeah...the thing with converters is they almost always work best with prime lenses, and a narrow selection of primes at that. My experience is that "some lenses" work well with "certain" converters...it's like dating--some pairs click, most do not. Most zooms with 13,14,15,17,21 elements and then a multi-element TC of 5 or 7 elements...yeeesssh...Uggg!

I think there are some newer exceptions, like the new 70-200/2.8 Mark II Canon zoom with the current Canon TC units, and the newest Nikon big-glass lenses and the all-new, aspherical element design TC's Nikon has developed--those seem to be pretty good pairings.

A year or more ago, I saw a pretty good comparison of Nikon high-end lenses with Nikon's converters, by a very critical, exacting nature shooter. He had a really good write-up on what the sacrifices were with using each lens with each converter, very detailed. The one thing we see a lot is bird/nature shooters using a TC + long lens for what might be called "center of frame emphasis" shots, where the subject in the center, like say a bird, is the big draw, but the edges are basically un-important, so that the converter is say good for BIF shots, but would NOT be good for like runnah's location/industrial/landscape type of images where bad edge performance will really hurt the photographs. My experience is that there is **always** at least some penalty to using a TC unit; sometimes it's not a big penalty, other times it is.

100-400 + 2x TC...my thought would probably be "crop in at the computer" more so than add a teleconverter to an already slowish zoom lens. Or, get a better 400mm, like the f/5.6 anon prime, which is a pretty good lens really, and not that big a burden in price or weight.

 

[runnah]

I'm surprised - all I've heard of it is that its a great lens.

Also what combo did you try that was a flop?

Yeah I was surprised. It is a rental so it has seen some use but it didn't feel like a $2.5k lens.

The combo was a 100-400mm L with a 2x extender. I would have to play around with it more but so far it just seems like it won't work.

Yeah...the thing with converters is they almost always work best with prime lenses, and a narrow selection of primes at that. My experience is that "some lenses" work well with "certain" converters...it's like dating--some pairs click, most do not. Most zooms with 13,14,15,17,21 elements and then a multi-element TC of 5 or 7 elements...yeeesssh...Uggg!

I think there are some newer exceptions, like the new 70-200/2.8 Mark II Canon zoom with the current Canon TC units, and the newest Nikon big-glass lenses and the all-new, aspherical element design TC's Nikon has developed--those seem to be pretty good pairings.

A year or more ago, I saw a pretty good comparison of Nikon high-end lenses with Nikon's converters, by a very critical, exacting nature shooter. He had a really good write-up on what the sacrifices were with using each lens with each converter, very detailed. The one thing we see a lot is bird/nature shooters using a TC + long lens for what might be called "center of frame emphasis" shots, where the subject in the center, like say a bird, is the big draw, but the edges are basically un-important, so that the converter is say good for BIF shots, but would NOT be good for like runnah's location/industrial/landscape type of images where bad edge performance will really hurt the photographs. My experience is that there is **always** at least some penalty to using a TC unit; sometimes it's not a big penalty, other times it is.

100-400 + 2x TC...my thought would probably be "crop in at the computer" more so than add a teleconverter to an already slowish zoom lens. Or, get a better 400mm, like the f/5.6 anon prime, which is a pretty good lens really, and not that big a burden in price or weight.

I am very glad I only rented all the lens and the extender. I wouldn't pay for either. Sadly none of my other lenses will work with it so I wasn't able to test it out.

Extenders feel like any other 'adapter" they get the job done but more often the sacrifices aren't worth it.

I think in this case I will do what you suggested and crop.

 

[CAP]

I will tell you what, You can sign me over your house and i will send you my Canon 600mm f/4L IS USM and a 2x canon teleconverter then you will have all reach you need.

P,S Yours or someones else'es everlasting soul is a acceptable form of collateral as well.

 

[JacaRanda]

I'm surprised - all I've heard of it is that its a great lens.

Also what combo did you try that was a flop?

Yeah I was surprised. It is a rental so it has seen some use but it didn't feel like a $2.5k lens.

The combo was a 100-400mm L with a 2x extender. I would have to play around with it more but so far it just seems like it won't work.

Yeah...the thing with converters is they almost always work best with prime lenses, and a narrow selection of primes at that. My experience is that "some lenses" work well with "certain" converters...it's like dating--some pairs click, most do not. Most zooms with 13,14,15,17,21 elements and then a multi-element TC of 5 or 7 elements...yeeesssh...Uggg!

I think there are some newer exceptions, like the new 70-200/2.8 Mark II Canon zoom with the current Canon TC units, and the newest Nikon big-glass lenses and the all-new, aspherical element design TC's Nikon has developed--those seem to be pretty good pairings.

A year or more ago, I saw a pretty good comparison of Nikon high-end lenses with Nikon's converters, by a very critical, exacting nature shooter. He had a really good write-up on what the sacrifices were with using each lens with each converter, very detailed. The one thing we see a lot is bird/nature shooters using a TC + long lens for what might be called "center of frame emphasis" shots, where the subject in the center, like say a bird, is the big draw, but the edges are basically un-important, so that the converter is say good for BIF shots, but would NOT be good for like runnah's location/industrial/landscape type of images where bad edge performance will really hurt the photographs. My experience is that there is **always** at least some penalty to using a TC unit; sometimes it's not a big penalty, other times it is.

100-400 + 2x TC...my thought would probably be "crop in at the computer" more so than add a teleconverter to an already slowish zoom lens. Or, get a better 400mm, like the f/5.6 anon prime, which is a pretty good lens really, and not that big a burden in price or weight.

I am very glad I only rented all the lens and the extender. I wouldn't pay for either. Sadly none of my other lenses will work with it so I wasn't able to test it out.

Extenders feel like any other 'adapter" they get the job done but more often the sacrifices aren't worth it.

I think in this case I will do what you suggested and crop.

Yup yup. Have the newer 1.4 tc and tried it on Wifey's 100-400 (NOPE) and on the 70-200 f4 IS, my favorite lens (NOPE) and on the 300F4 (NOPE). It will get used if I could ever afford the 300 2.8 II

Derrel hit the nail on the head with the previous post.