This is a continuation of my prior Bigma vs 100-400 mini-review. All shots are hand-held, and this time around, I shot both lenses at the far ends, so the 100-400 is at 5.6@400mm and the Bigma is at 6.3@500mm, which has an impact on the results. But this test is to see how each behaves at their longest zoom with the 3x, not how they work at 400mm each.
The TC is the Kenko Pro DG 3x, and is just as nice as its 1.4x smaller sibling. I taped the pins, but this time around I could not get AF to work on either 100-400, unlike the 1.4x. Basically this TC will restrict you to manual focus. This leads me to the following observations:
Bigma Observations
There are two factors that make the Bigma not work very well with the TC, yielding fewer keeper photos, unlike the 1.4x TC:
1) Since the Bigma is already heavier than the 100-400, per my review, adding 3 inches to the length of the lens, simply physics and angular force means the Bigma feels even heavier now. This means you have to hold it farther down the lens to be comfortable.
2) The focus ring is toward the back of the lens, making it ackward to focus since you have to hold the lens with your hand farther away from you, but still manipulate the focus ring that is still pretty close to you with a outstretched thumb.
This means that it is very difficult to get a clear shot with this lens. You can see that in the following shots, it was too ackward and heavy to really handle this combination.
100-400 Observations
1) The lens feels much lighter than the Bigma now with the TC on it.
2) The focus ring is at the end of the lens where you would hold it, making it very handy to manually focus, I was able to manually focus about twice as fast with this lens.
3) Halfpress the shutter to lock exposure but also to activate the IS means you can manually focus that much quicker and more accurately. Of course I have the custom function turned on to use AE lock as focus.
This means that this lens works much better and easier with the TC on it, yielding pictures with better IQ due to the overall package being easier to focus and handle.
This now tips the scales of which lens I want to keep in favor of the 100-400. Before with just lens to lens without the 1.4x, they both had pros and cons, but the versatility edged the Bigma out over the 100-400. Adding the 1.4x allowed both lens to autofocus, but the 100-400 focused more often with a minor amount of less hunting, evening the scale between the two lenses.
I still need to look at the normal set of photos I would ever take during everyday activities and decide which lens and its capabilities come into play in those situations. Both lenses are really spectacular for the money, one has IS and is L, and the other has more versatility and longer reach, both with very good IQ, provided you didn't end up with a soft Sigma that would need sent in to be calibrated.
Here are the two test photos at 50mm with the Bigma to show what I focused on. One is the utilities tag and the other is the hot tub warning label.
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