fitness of 100-400 mm lens to 400D body

[subhasis_roy]

<p>Sir,<br>

I have a Canon EOS 400D Digital camera with 75-300 mm USM lens. Now I have decieded to go with EF100-400 mm L IS USM lens. Please tell me about the fitness of this lens with my camera. And further if think to use this lens with 1.4X Canon teleconverter then is it posible for camera to hold this . Please tell me after fitting the teleconverter can I get the Autofocus and IS property of lens throughout its zoom range. Please tell me soon.<br>

Subhasis Roy, Jr. Engineer(Mechanical)<br>

West Bengal,India</p>

 

[matthijs]

<p>The 100-400 will work perfectly with your 400D.</p>

<p>The 100-400 will take pictures on a 400D with a converter but the image quality will be lower and more importantly you'll lose auto focus. IS will work.</p>

[sattler123]

<p>Yes, your 400D will work perfectly fine with the 100-400. Instead of buying the Canon 1.4x tele converter, get the Kenko Pro 300 1.4x and tape the three outer pins facing the lens that are not raised! That way your camera will retain Autofocus, but you will need good light for it to work (during the day you will have no problems). This IS works always with any converter.</p>

[neill_farmer2]

<p>I have the 400D and 100-400LIS. That combination works well but I haven't had much success with using my Sigma 1.4 EX converter, pictures are soft (I hand hold). <br>

The 400D and 100-400LIS combination is capable of surprising sharpness. Photographs taken in bright sunlight are first rate, but the lens seems to loose its sparkle in dull and overcast conditions. I find it is always best to have the ISO cranked up so that you can shoot at f8 or even higher, f10, with adequate shutter speed (1/400+). The IS works well, I recently photo'd and owl and got good sharp A4s (200x300mm) prints with shutter speeds as low as 1/40th ( took 5 shots, only one was motion blurred beyond redemption, 3 were ok and one was very sharp). At 400mm some problems come into play, depth of field can be short so focussing, not a 400D strength, needs to be accurate. Long distance subjects can suffer atmospheric blurring, nothing you can do about that. I have found that my sharpest shots come when I auto focus and then touch up manually, or just use manual focus, with a 400D that's not always easy due to the viewfinder. The alternative, the 400 5.6L gives (I am told) good sharpness over all f stops, I would not claim that for the 100-400 but at f8 to f10 the 100-400 seems to equal my 70-200 EX APO.</p>

[DickArnold]

<p>I have a 400D and a 100-400. I had trouble with the small size of the camera in gripping it properly with that lens. I bought a battery grip which solved the problem. I have taken a number of good pictures with the combination. I agree with Neill's comments so won't repeat them. I have a Tamron 1.4 extender that works for AF without tape. The camera senses proper exposure but the annunciation of shutter speed is wrong. Makes barely passable pictures so I don't use it much. My Canon 2X is horrible on this lens and not so good on my 70-200 2.8L. I don't use it at all. High ISo on my 400D is also not so good as compared with my 5D. See the Orioles in my gallery they were done on a tripod, mirror lockup, remote trigger all at about f8, ISO 400, which is OK on the 400D.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>As noted above, any Canon lens will work fine with your 400D - including the 100-400. It is a big lens, so your camera may seem small by comparison, but that isn't really a problem. The mount will work just fine.</p>

<p>If you shoot from a tripod, you'll attach the lens to the tripod and the camera will be supported only by the lens mount - but that won't be an issues since that setupu works with much larger and heavier bodies.</p>

<p>When you shoot handheld, the mount won't generally support the full weight of the lens. You'll almost certainly supprt the lens itself with one hand.</p>

<p>I've always felt that the "small size of the camera" concern is a bit bogus here. Ideally, wouldn't it be cool if you could somehow carry only the lens and an infinitely small, invisible camera? Would we ask for a bigger and heavier camera to be added? Not likely.</p>

<p>The Canon 1.4x TC will not work properly with this lens and camera since it can only AF at apertures of f/5.6 and larger. Once you put the TC on your effective aperture becomes one stop smaller (e.g. f/5.6 becomes f/8) and you are out of luck without resorting to trickery such as taping contacts and so forth. But you'll have a ton of reach with that lens and camera combination even without the TC. It will give you an angle of view at 400mm equivalent to using a 640mm lens on a full-frame body.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[david israel]

<p>Yes it works fine with the 4ooD. Enjoy the new lens/camera combo!</p>

[ed_k__north_carolina_]

<p>It may seem like semantics, but you don't mount the 100-400 to the camera; you mount the camera to the lens. The lens becomes the center of gravity.<br>

The 400D is signifiacntly smaller body than my 30D or 40D, enventhough I still perfer to use the battery grip to help balance out the rig. The hand strap is a must to give you a firm grip on the body.</p>