Canon EF 1.4x II

[maceo920]

I'm thinking about purchasing the EF 1.4x II (or EF 2x II) for my 200mm f12.8L II lense. However, I'm not sure what to expect from the extender.

Can you share your opinions, experience and suggestions with the extenders?

Will the image quality suffer with the extenders?

Please help.....

Thanks!

[Curtis N]

At the very top of this forum section -
Teleconverter FAQ (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41922)

[SYS]

I'm thinking about purchasing the EF 1.4x II (or EF 2x II) for my 200mm f12.8L II lense. However, I'm not sure what to expect from the extender.

Can you share your opinions, experience and suggestions with the extenders?

Will the image quality suffer with the extenders?

Please help.....

Thanks!

I have a 2x II extender, which I use with my 70-200L f/2.8 with a marginal success. Yes, you do definitely lose some degree of quality. The question is whether it's at acceptable level to YOU or not. Since you're thinking about using it on your 200 prime, you probably won't lose quality as much as on mine. I heard that these extenders don't suffer as much on primes than zooms. There seems to be consensus among this forum members that you get much better results with 1.4x than 2x. But would you want to spend that much money just to get 1.4x out of your 200mm?

[lomond]

Yes look at the FAQ's.
That said I have the 1.4 that I use mainly with my 300f4.
My verdict ?......Fantastic, the loss of detail is minimal.
Don't hesitate to buy it for the 200 f2.8.
I can't speak for the 2xTC.

[SYS]

By the way, here's the "2x II Photo Samples" that I posted some time ago:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=118836

If you don't like the quality of the photos, you should definitely go with the 1.4x.

[formula4speed]

With the 1.4 TC matched with my 200 2.8L I don't see any noticeable loss in image quality or focus speed.

[CyberDyneSystems]

A great combo with the 1.4X... with the 2X? not so much....

[Roy P]

I use the 1.4 with my 200 (in fact only lens I have that can use it) and unless I look at the exif data I can't tell with any certainty which shots are with what. They look just as good.

[Lester Wareham]

I'm thinking about purchasing the EF 1.4x II (or EF 2x II) for my 200mm f12.8L II lense. However, I'm not sure what to expect from the extender.

Can you share your opinions, experience and suggestions with the extenders?

Will the image quality suffer with the extenders?

Please help.....

Thanks!

Canon publish the expected MTF performance for lenses with the extenders in "Eyes of EOS" book which is worth having. I have done some processing on this at http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/MTF_Files/300mm_Primes/index.htm (1.4X) and http://www.zen20934.zen.co.uk/photography/MTF_Files/400mm_Primes/index.htm (2X) compared against similar focal length MTFs.

So the 200mm is not too bad at 1.4X but less good at 2X. Having said that the smaller image requirements for a 1.6 crop camera would ease things.