Favoring 70-200 2.8II+2x tc over 100-400

My saga of finding the good birding/wildlife lens has led me to owning a sigma 120-400OS (a very good copy of it I think) a canon 100-400 IS, and a canon 70-200 2.8 IS II with 2xII TC. I am starting to favor the 7-2 combination, as I am finding the IS so great on it, and focus tracking as good as the 100-400, which is very much to my surprise. here is a shot from tonight on 60D, at iso 400, 1/1250, f 5.6, manual. I did not realize I am shooting jpeg, so unfortunately cant fix some of the highlights.

Nice looking shots !
I'm getting more and more convinced to get one.

Lovely result!
And yes the 70-200mm M2 + 2*TC combo is a very powerful setup, really is quite amazing to consider that this lens+TC setup is pretty much on par with the 100-400mm (a good copy). It also makes a pretty good close up lens for flowers and the like as well in this setup - a really diverse thing for a nature photographer.

The full shot looks pretty good at web resolution. The 100% crop though shows it's certainly not as sharp as many would like (me included), so the cropping capacity isn't great. But yes it looks good enough to get some nice shots assuming you can fill your frame.

edit: Now that I look at it again, it looks more like too much NR rather than lens softness

stopping down the 70-200+2x to f7.1 makes a GREAT difference in sharpness, test it!

Kevin, i agree the 70-200MKII does still perform AF wise pretty darn good even with a 2X as i found out & reported in my extender testing in my Signature.

But i also found even under the best circumstances the 100-400L copy i had still maintained a slightly better IQ in the overall frame when shooting controlled stationary test targets at 30ft. using LV & manual focusing versus the 70-200MKII with a 2X. I did however use a crop body sensor in the testing and NOT the 5D MKII that should make the test frame IQ more even.

F8.0 is the optimum aperture to use with this 2x combo.

After the testing and the fact i always was at the 400mm end of the 100-400L in real world shooting i sold it, and purchased a nice UY copy of the 400/f5.6 prime since IMO if you own a 70-200MKII that accepts the 1.4 with minimal IQ loss it just didnt make much sense not to get the 400 prime to use bare or even use a 1.4 on it.

Anyways your pic looks just fine for a 2X BIF capture on my monitor and simply further proves the stellar capabilities of the 70-200MKII lens in the right hands like yourself.

Regards, Ron

^^^ this guy is the extender master...seriously check out his link it is very comprehensive. Hate to think of all the effort that went into those reviews for the rest of us too lazy to test it out ourselves. Ty for your effort!

Ron (Silverfox1),

Your TC extender tests were great to read through, and your comments above really
answer alot of question I also had.

Both the 100-400L and the 70-200 2.8L and in my upgrade/wish list.
Thanks for the info!

nice one but you guys must not have good copies of 100-400L. I haven't yet tested my 70-200mm f2.8 IS II with the 2xTC but my 100-400L was very good that it was hard to find much difference between it and my 400mm f5.6. Of course 400mm f5.6 had much better AF. And I think AF of bare 100-400L would be better than using 2xTC on 70-200mm.

nice shots on that bird.

I think my 70-200 V2 plus 2X is plenty sharp. I don't remember my 100% crops from the 400 f5.6L being any better.

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my 100-400 on the 5d2 is excellent. on the 60D, I am finding at 5.6, no quite there. may be it needs a bit of MFA, but even tripod liveview focus, I am hard pressed to see much difference compared to 70-200 with 2xtc. to my surprise though, the focusing is not much different either, and the 70-200 better IS makes a difference. I will admit that the one advantage of the 100-400 that it is still decent with a taped kenko 1.4x.

Here are some shots from my 100-400L. I am using ancient camera (1dmk2) by today's standards.

^Beautiful detail.

Can I ask what is the date code of that lens?

In considering a used one, I have read that newer ones (mid 2008 forward) perform better than older ones. Is this correct?

Bobby, first of all, great shots. second, your 1d2 has a lower pixel density than my 5d2, and a much lower pixel density than the 60D and 7D. Yes, I get results like that on my 5d2, but the 60D at 100% crops, not quite. I will post 100% crops from 5d2 at 5.6, later on.