Dale Matson
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Canon 400mm 5.6 With 1.4X Extender
In my never-ending quest to improve super telephoto image
quality (IQ), I have gone from the Canon EF 100-400mm to the Sony SAL 70-400mm
to the Tamron 150-600mm and now I am using the adapted Canon EF 400mm 5.6. Each
prior lens had a honeymoon period before determining that the IQ (which is more
than just sharpness) was
unacceptable. Additionally, the zoom lenses were heavy for hiking in the
mountains with a daypack. Someday (soon I hope) Sony, Zeiss or Sony/Zeiss will
provide a native long lens. I have the FE 70-300 lens but it is too short a
reach for bighorn sheep in most cases.
I am primarily a mountain landscape photographer but it
occurred to me that for wildlife (almost exclusively mountain bighorn sheep) I
always used the long end of the zoom anyway, so a single focus, prime lens was
not really a limiting factor. The lens has a deserved reputation for being
light, relatively inexpensive, and very sharp and would also provide an
acceptably sharp image with the 1.4X extender, which then yields a 560mm lens.
When the extender is used, there is loss of light, less depth of field and no
autofocus.
This lens is not image stabilized but the A7R2 IBIS allows
for hand held shots at 400mm. About half of the images I have provided were
hand held. The rest were shot with a monopod or a tripod. The main trick with
the lens is understanding how best to mate it with the A7R2. One reason for
writing this article is that there is not
a lot of information out there on the pairing of the A7R2 with the Canon 400mm
5.6.
In the adapter chart for Canon Lenses to E-Mount, Brian
Smith developed, he shows “slow but accurate autofocus” with the Viltrox
adapter (which is what I have). The Photodiox adapter does not autofocus. I can agree with him because I rented one to
see if it would work better than my Viltrox adapter. http://briansmith.com/sony-a7rii-canon-ef-smart-adapter-tests/
The Viltrox adapter provides the file information including when you add the
extender. It will say “560mm”. I don’t know about the Metabones IV adapter and
if someone reads this, who uses one with this lens, please comment.
I would add that Brian Smith recommend selecting the “Phase
Detection Auto Focus” (PDAF) in the Sony set up menu. I recommend “Contrast
Detection Auto Focus” (CDAF). If I am patient, I can get autofocus most of the
time with Contrast Detection. The lens sometimes ‘hunts’ but will eventually
find focus. I found PDAF to be too undependable. When it works, great! But much
of the time it doesn’t work.
There are two additional things worth discussing. One is the
fact that the Sony A7R2 recognizes non-native lenses as cropped lenses. Check your image file sizes to make certain that
you are getting full frame file sizes. If you are not getting 20+mb files you
can turn off “auto crop” in the set up menu.
Another is dealing with manual focusing. For manual focus, I
switch to aperture priority and move
the lens switch from AF to MF. A 400mm lens has a small zone of focus and focus peaking IS NOT dependable on its
own. This is where focus magnification
becomes important. However, focus magnification is not practical without using
a tripod when you go from 5X to 12X.
If you zoom to 12X and refocus the image, you will have a good hit rate of
sharp images. I can hand hold and zoom to 5X and refocus but it is impossible
for me to keep the image in view at 12X.
I have found that practice is an important part of shooting
with any non-native long lens. It also helps in the field to review photographs
when possible using the magnify button to determine if the image is still sharp
when magnified. When possible, auto focus is still the best avenue to a sharp
photo but no guarantee either.
What have I found? The Canon 400mm 5.6 lens gives me the
best IQ and portability of any adapted telephoto lens I have used. All of these photographs were sharp viewed actual size. The files are smaller for upload.
400mm 5.6 1/50 ISO 6400
400mm 5.6 1/1000
400mm f8 1/1000
400mm 5.6 1/500
400mm 5.6 1/1000
400mm 6.3 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm f8 1/500
560mm Crop
Big Moon Of 11-14-16 560mm f8 1/500 ISO 100
400mm 1/400 f5.6 4,000 ISO
mmmm my Sony has never done auto crop on any of my adapted lenses but I have been using MB IV so perhaps that is the issue you have been experiencing?
ReplyDeleteI will try finding this 400mm lens to check how it works as my current longest is the EF 70-200mm 2.8 IS ii.
Regards
Yes, all of us would like to know how well the autofocus works with the adapted Canon 400 5.6 using the MBIV adapter. It is expensive but I would buy it if the autofocus worked well using it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough a completely different animal, I find the 500/4L to work extremely well with the A7RII+MBIV. I have used the combination heavily in my last rugby championship, generally leaving my 1DX and 7DII in the bag. Subject tracking is pretty decent, and i find the A7RII to have better focus accuracy than the Canon cameras.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I'm sure this is a great lens for the professional or someone who is primarily a wildlife photographer. I can only imagine the reach with an extender too. I could not afford the cost (about $9,000.00) or the weight (about 7 lbs.) for the few times a year I photograph bighorn sheep in the mountains. I am surprised that the lens can focus better on the A7R2 then on the Canon cameras. Do you set the Sony to contrast or phase detection? Where do you set the mode dial?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this information. sony imx253
ReplyDelete