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On the verge of buying Cannon 400mm prime

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CameraCarl said:
Rocket13 said:
Thanks all, and yes was looking at refurb, my 80D is a refurb so as long as they have stock will more then likely be refurb.

I get the 100-400 is more versatile, but I rarely shoot below max zoom on my 150-600. That was another reason I was considering the prime.
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If you rarely shoot at less than 600mm, why are you asking about a 400m? Unless you get a 400mm f2.8 or f4 L DO lens, and couple it with a 1.4x III converter, you are going to have to crop like mad to get the same field of view as your 600. And then, you may lose enough image quality that you might as well have stayed with the lens you own.
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One oft-ignored beauty of the 600/6.3 zooms is that they have a bigger entrance pupil than any 400/5.6 with a TC can provide.

600mm/6.3 = 95mm

400mm/5.6 = 71mm

Those are diameters, so the light difference is the difference of the squares of those; about 0.83 stops more subject light from the 600/6.3, from the same distance, with the same shutter speed. That's with or without a TC on the 400/5.6. Of course, 0.83 is not exact because f-numbers and focal lengths are not exact.
 
ed rader said:
so therefore is not versatile. I would not get the prime.
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Someone doing BIFs in bright light probably doesn't need IS, and the 400/5.6L prime is so easy to handle.

Maybe not the best only 400mm lens to have, but a good one to have if BIFs in bright light is your thing.
 
Rocket13 said:
I'm sorry that statement from me was misleading, when 600 mounted rarely less then 600mm when 120-400 mounted rarely less then 400
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So, then in both cases, it may be 913mm that you're really after.

Welcome to the real world of lenses not being as "powerful" as they might seem at first, for small or distant subjects.
 
Again thanks for all the insight, I ended up going with The Tamron 100-400 since I only had to invest $400 out of pocket I had a $300 Amazon gift card. I received it today and tested definitely a big improvement over my old used and abused Sigma 120-400.Probably not as great as a Cannon 400mm 5.6 prime of course.

I plan on testing tomorrow on Birds in Flight to see how it does with that. I wont share the test shots here of course since Cannon forum.

I do like how light it is, the AF seems decent enough I should know more tomorrow.
 
KiloHotelphoto said:
I have seen several YouTube video reviews of the 400 5.6 and they say when you crop in the Canon images are sharper than the Tamron or Sigma 150-600 lenses at 600.mm.
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As stated, that doesn't mean anything specific. Did they look at pixels, or did they look at normalized subjects, shot from the same distance? Did they put a 1.4xIII on the Canon to get the focal lengths similar?

I can believe that the Canon with a 1.4xIII is as sharp or sharper than the 150-600 zooms at 600mm and f/8, but a crop from the 400 prime alone can never, ever get the amount of detail that the 600mm lens gets, from the same distance, unless the 600 zoom fails to achieve focus. A 100% pixel view might make the 400 look more detailed, but that is sharpness, which isn't really subject detail. A bird rendered over 2.25 million pixels, softly at 100%, can easily be more detailed than the same bird rendered sharply at 100% over 1 million pixels. Anyone who doesn't believe this should upsample an 100% crop that they think is sharp and upsample it to 150% with bicubic or any true resampling method, and see how sharp it is (isn't).

Sharpness, brought on by lower magnification, is hollow sharpness; not detail.
 
I didn’t do the test or come up with the verdict. Look them up yourself and a see how they did it and why they came to their conclusions.
 
CameraCarl said:
Rocket13 said:
Thanks all, and yes was looking at refurb, my 80D is a refurb so as long as they have stock will more then likely be refurb.

I get the 100-400 is more versatile, but I rarely shoot below max zoom on my 150-600. That was another reason I was considering the prime.
Click to expand...
If you rarely shoot at less than 600mm, why are you asking about a 400m? Unless you get a 400mm f2.8 or f4 L DO lens, and couple it with a 1.4x III converter, you are going to have to crop like mad to get the same field of view as your 600. And then, you may lose enough image quality that you might as well have stayed with the lens you own.
Click to expand...
Tony Northrup tested the Canon 100-400mm is II against the Tamron and Sigma 150-600 lenses and came to the conclusion that cropping the 100-400mm IS II produced images as sharp as the Tamron and Sigma at 600 mm. That test was not with the newest Tamron version. The Canon is f 5.6 at 400mm. I believe the others are F 6.3 at 600 mm-someone can correct me if wrong here. You can also expect quicker focus with the Canon 100-400 mm or run it to 560mm with the 1.4 TC ( f 8) and get good focusing results in good light. The Canon 100-400mm minimum focus distance is around three feet- making it a pretty good lens for closeup work, too.
 
Zcarxrg said:
CameraCarl said:
Rocket13 said:
Thanks all, and yes was looking at refurb, my 80D is a refurb so as long as they have stock will more then likely be refurb.

I get the 100-400 is more versatile, but I rarely shoot below max zoom on my 150-600. That was another reason I was considering the prime.
Click to expand...
If you rarely shoot at less than 600mm, why are you asking about a 400m? Unless you get a 400mm f2.8 or f4 L DO lens, and couple it with a 1.4x III converter, you are going to have to crop like mad to get the same field of view as your 600. And then, you may lose enough image quality that you might as well have stayed with the lens you own.
Click to expand...
Tony Northrup tested the Canon 100-400mm is II against the Tamron and Sigma 150-600 lenses and came to the conclusion that cropping the 100-400mm IS II produced images as sharp as the Tamron and Sigma at 600 mm. That test was not with the newest Tamron version. The Canon is f 5.6 at 400mm. I believe the others are F 6.3 at 600 mm-someone can correct me if wrong here. You can also expect quicker focus with the Canon 100-400 mm or run it to 560mm with the 1.4 TC ( f 8) and get good focusing results in good light. The Canon 100-400mm minimum focus distance is around three feet- making it a pretty good lens for closeup work, too.
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It is amazing how much I can crop with the 100-400 II. One reason I seldom use the 1.4 with my 7D2 is I just like using all the AF options it offers. I use the 1.4 on my 5D4 quite a bit.
 
What about the 300 F4, with image stabilisation ? I get very crisp results, ok it's not got the world's greatest image stabilisation but it's pretty good. Also you get the extra stop for much the same sort of money. And on your Canon 80 it will be equivalent to a 500 mm lens?
 
Ian from Berks said:
What about the 300 F4, with image stabilisation ? I get very crisp results, ok it's not got the world's greatest image stabilisation but it's pretty good. Also you get the extra stop for much the same sort of money. And on your Canon 80 it will be equivalent to a 500 mm lens?
Click to expand...
 
Ian from Berks said:
What about the 300 F4, with image stabilisation ? I get very crisp results, ok it's not got the world's greatest image stabilisation but it's pretty good. Also you get the extra stop for much the same sort of money. And on your Canon 80 it will be equivalent to a 500 mm lens?
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The OP is already used to what real focal length millimeters are like on his 80D, in a range that includes 300mm, so why the "equivalent" translation? [Edit: I removed an error of my own from my original posting of this, thinking of a 1.4x from TCs instead of 1.6x.]

I've used 98% APS-C and 2% FF over the years, and see no need to do any math when thinking about focal lengths, and even if I did, that math is about a limitation for the smaller sensor; not some advantage it has. The only advantage the 80D has over FF cameras is a much higher pixel density (except only barely higher than the 5Ds(r)), all while maintaining multi-point f/8 AF depending on the lens and TC combo.
 
Last edited:
The only reason to consider the maths of the crop is when considering a shutter speed if using the old 1/FL rule of thumb.

Colin
 
Andy01 said:
The only reason to consider the maths of the crop is when considering a shutter speed if using the old 1/FL rule of thumb.
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Yes, if you use it. It makes certain assumptions about display size, and it assumes that the camera stability is the weakest link, which is not true with a tripod or IS. Subject motion may need stopping of its won, which isn't necessarily related to optical magnification.
 
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