How Far is too Far with a 100-400mm w/1.4x

I think it also depends on your 100-400 and body combo.
Some are sharper than others.
the 60d does not allow at home adjustment so what you have is all youre getting unless you send it into
Canon to make sure all is well.

I shoot a 7d and 100-400L and regularly crop above 50%. If you check my flickr page MOST of them are 50-80% crops. Some of them are 100% and some are hardly cropped at all.
I would say its RARE if I get a subject to fill even 1/5th (20%) of my viewfinder. I hike and shoot so I dont get the opportunity to easily set up for shots in my garden or backyard.

See if you can tell the difference when viewing on a big monitor (21" +).
Keep your shutter speed up high as that will help with stopping any subject or camera motion.
I use a monopod for most of my shots as I THINK it gives a slight bit more stability if I need to drop my shutter speed below 1/800th. It may not do a thing but I like it.

For a quick rule of thumb for me
tiny birds like hummingbirds, I dont bother shooting them over 10ft away (3m or so)
warblers/sparrows, I basically dont bother more than 20ft or so (6m)
Doves, quail, and other normal sized birds 25-30ft ( 10m)
Rapors I will take whatever I can. 75ft or so (25+meters)

Large shore birds like Egret and Heron are about the same as raptors for me.

With that said, I sometimes get away with nice shots at farther than the above distances but its not typical.
Heck sometimes they look like garbage even when I'm closer. LOL
I hope those approximate distances help.

Oh and post processing can REALLY take a decent in camera photo and turn it into a nice printed shot.
I print 11x14 mostly but sometimes if I really like a shot I have done 20x30 without issue.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

Larry, some very good replies to your question thus far from experienced photographers. I've learned a great amount from viewing the images and discussions on the bird forums, a lot of knowledge here. I feel like I've learned a lot from all the great folks here even if it may not show in my photos.
Once used to think that a very long lens would get the great images viewed here but actually found these photographers are still getting very close, much closer than I thought.
I'm shooting with the 60D also,mounted with a 150-500 Sigma, my better songbird shots are being taken at 30 feet, sometimes less and set at 4-500 mm. At this distance I can keep cropping to a minimum, and get the bird to nearly fill the entire frame. Depending on the scene however, snow, frost, the bird, background, I've been pleased with shots taken much further away. Seems that when I'm trying to get my "first" image of a seldom seen bird or animal I can be satisfied with a long distance shot but soon find myself trying to improve by getting closer.

Using a tripod has helped with my shots and when out hiking I use a monopod. Most of the time waiting for the birds to come close to me give better results, however I enjoy hiking and hunting for them much more. I have shots of Eagles and Turkey taken at 100 to 500 yards at 500 mm with decent light,they serve as documenting photos for me only, not worthy of sharing with fellow birders here but mildly satisfying to me at the time I shot them. My thought, I can always delete them and find myself doing so often as my images improve. As someone else mentioned, a distant shot of a bird or animal may well add to a very nice landscape shot.


At this time my thoughts are, get as close as possible, shoot to satisfy yourself and strive to improve. Questions that still come to my mind as I view the excellent shots on this forum are: distance excluded, what is making the most difference in quality, is it the lens, body, light, skill or a combination of all of these. For the best quality my Sigma sure requires a lot of light but when the light is available, distance is close and stability is good I can get some very nice shots with the 6oD. The 100-400 has proven to be an excellent lens so I'm looking forward to seeing some images soon.

I agree with Scrumhalf. If you can't get close, get artistic. I have these shots hanging on my wall, and get lots of compliments on them.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …scubadude1960/8​571042279/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …scubadude1960/8​595942031/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …scubadude1960/7​798329020/

Grizz and ScubaDude, I agree, there have been some very helpful replies. I appreciate them all.
Yesterday I was able to get up close and personal with a great many diving ducks. I took 900 pics and can see how close one really should be to get great results.

Larry Johnson wrote in post #16712891
Yesterday I was able to get up close and personal with a great many diving ducks. I took 900 pics and can see how close one really should be to get great results.

That's great, Larry!

I think that once people get to shoot real close, and literally fill the frame with the subject, they then realize that almost all of their previous far-away attempts were basically doomed right from the start.

Trying to get excellent results from too-far-away is an effort in frustration that will never give you tremendous results. Even with an 800mm lens, you still need to be surprisingly close to get truly excellent results.

The real objective should be to photograph birds close-up, not trying to figure out how to salvage something from too far away.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #16719773
The real objective should be to photograph birds close-up, not trying to figure out how to salvage something from too far away.

I wish somebody had told me this when I started. Oh, they did! Well, I wish I'd listened!

hollis_f wrote in post #16705906
... if you've got a UV/Protective filter on your 100-400 then remove it. This lens is famous for hating filters.

Is this a well documented fact?

It is

blueM wrote in post #16781799
It is

100%

Tom Reichner wrote in post #16719773
That's great, Larry!

I think that once people get to shoot real close, and literally fill the frame with the subject,

Tom,

One unexpected problem that I ran into in getting so close to the subject (profiled bird swimming left or right) and using the center focus point on it's head/eye, was cutting off it's tail, while the other half of the frame was empty. In situations like this I'm either zooming out and/or trying to select different AF points to use as much of the frame as possible, but it doesn't always work well. I haven't tried locking the focus and moving the camera on a slow moving subject to take advantage of the entire frame, but I suspect it wouldn't work very well. Any thoughts or advice?

I often focus, then recompose. I know many frown on this but it works for me.

Larry Johnson wrote in post #16781861
Tom,

One unexpected problem that I ran into in getting so close to the subject (profiled bird swimming left or right) and using the center focus point on it's head/eye, was cutting off it's tail, while the other half of the frame was empty. In situations like this I'm either zooming out and/or trying to select different AF points to use as much of the frame as possible, but it doesn't always work well. I haven't tried locking the focus and moving the camera on a slow moving subject to take advantage of the entire frame, but I suspect it wouldn't work very well. Any thoughts or advice?

I have set my focus on back button focus. That way I hit the focus on the eye, the focus then stays locked when I hit the shutter. I can slide it forward a touch and get the whole bird before I shoot. I have also done a lot of practice to learn to change focus points without looking at my camera. Especially with birds in flight it lets me select a focus point off center that allows me to hold on the head of the bird and swing with it.

res wrote in post #16783890
I have set my focus on back button focus.

I'm not familiar with this option/method. I'll have to see if I can do it with a 60D.

I've also practiced switching focus points and switching from single/center point focus to all focus points for birds in flight. Generally, for BIFs, the bird doesn't fill the entire frame, so centerpoint focus works well for composing the shot.

Larry Johnson wrote in post #16787615
I'm not familiar with this option/method. I'll have to see if I can do it with a 60D.

I've also practiced switching focus points and switching from single/center point focus to all focus points for birds in flight. Generally, for BIFs, the bird doesn't fill the entire frame, so centerpoint focus works well for composing the shot.

It's absolutely an option on your 60D. I used to use BBF (back button focus) and my old EOS Rebel XT, and promptly enabled it on my 60D when I got it last year.

Last year I upgraded to a 60D and 100-400L for a trip to the Amazon River in Brazil. After lots of reading on this board, I didn't bother with a filter on the lens except to occasionally use a polarizing filter (mostly used on my wide angle lens). I really enjoyed using the camera and lens and got a bunch of shots that I was happy with. I have a bunch of shots that were of a bird very far away that required a bunch of cropping. Those aren't my favorite shots, but when they were the only shots that I got of an interesting or unusual bird, I kept them.