40D focusing with the 100-400mm

It may be a bit early to ask my question, as I know many people are just getting this new body , but I was wondering if anyone who has used the 100-400mm in past on an older body, such as the 30D, 20D, XTi, XT, or other, has noticed an improvement with focusing? Is the focusing faster, and or more accurate? I am wondering as I would like to upgrade in the future to this body.

Great question, I am also very interested in knowing the same thing. I love my 100-400 on my XT, and am wondering if it will work even better on the 40D.


Bryan

I just spent 2 weeks in Ecuador shooting with my 40D with the 100-400. I used my 30 D for my short lens. I noticed no huge improvement over the 30D, except on one occasion where the servo(which I rarely use) was terrific.Isuspect tho, that when i'm done reviewing my pictures, I'll find that the focusing overall was more precise than with the 30d.

jnrose24 wrote in post #3952775
I just spent 2 weeks in Ecuador shooting with my 40D with the 100-400. I used my 30 D for my short lens. I noticed no huge improvement over the 30D, except on one occasion where the servo(which I rarely use) was terrific.Isuspect tho, that when i'm done reviewing my pictures, I'll find that the focusing overall was more precise than with the 30d.

Can you list some improvements between the 2?

BSBXTi wrote in post #3951692
It may be a bit early to ask my question, as I know many people are just getting this new body , but I was wondering if anyone who has used the 100-400mm in past on an older body, such as the 30D, 20D, XTi, XT, or other, has noticed an improvement with focusing? Is the focusing faster, and or more accurate? I am wondering as I would like to upgrade in the future to this body.

The first thing I noticed with my 100-400mm on my 40D over my 30D was speed it focused, it is the most used lens for me, I have more shots that are in Focus, as for more accurate, well not really, once the 30D locked on it was good, same as the 40D, and with bigger VF you see it focus as well.

BSBXTi wrote in post #3951692
It may be a bit early to ask my question, as I know many people are just getting this new body , but I was wondering if anyone who has used the 100-400mm in past on an older body, such as the 30D, 20D, XTi, XT, or other, has noticed an improvement with focusing? Is the focusing faster, and or more accurate? I am wondering as I would like to upgrade in the future to this body.

Don't know if I'm experienced enough to give a good answer on this, but the lens in question is the one I use the most on my XT - I got the 40D and it seems to focus MUCH more quickly. And I get more keeper shots as well. This happened overnight, as soon as I got the new body, so I can't say it's due to any increase in skill on my part.

Far better on the 40D than the XTi. Speed, accuracy, servo, ease of MF, all of it.

Awesome guys thanks for the replies! Seems like this will be a great upgrade when I can afford it.

good question,

thanks from me as well with your replies. looking forward to the 40D

It focus more faster (with 400mm f5.6), but it also hunt like before if you don't have a contrasty subject. In dense bush with small bird I encounter some erratic AF in servo mode. Every time a small branche move around I lost the focus point, so the AF are more sentive but with drawback. The tracking in open area are marvelous, the much bigger improvement are when subject are coming to you, I shoot a squirell (at 50-75ft away) coming to me with 100% rate. Unfortunatly when I look at my picture in the computer my smile go down. The squirrel was on an electrical cable against a grey sky, so a contrasty scene, at 400ISO i've got some chroma noise in the shadow part of the animal, bad point! Also in less than good condition (contrasty scene, shadow, etc) the final image are whooly with artifact and even if I took off the sharpness to do it later in photoshop the final looklike a point and shoot digital shot. This only happen with the 400mm, with other lens the render are marvelous (even with the ef-s 17-85). 400L USM not on par with the 40D? Problem resolving resolution of long lens shot?

this is sample of shot with the 40d, squirell and bird are with the 400mm (no sharpening, the squirell croped) and the leaf with the 50mm f 1.8 II (small sharpening in PS)

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Here's the last one, In the web size, I agree that they look better than full size in my computer.

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avan wrote in post #3958268
It focus more faster (with 400mm f5.6), but it also hunt like before if you don't have a contrasty subject. In dense bush with small bird I encounter some erratic AF in servo mode. Every time a small branche move around I lost the focus point, so the AF are more sentive but with drawback. The tracking in open area are marvelous, the much bigger improvement are when subject are coming to you, I shoot a squirell (at 50-75ft away) coming to me with 100% rate. Unfortunatly when I look at my picture in the computer my smile go down. The squirrel was on an electrical cable against a grey sky, so a contrasty scene, at 400ISO i've got some chroma noise in the shadow part of the animal, bad point! Also in less than good condition (contrasty scene, shadow, etc) the final image are whooly with artifact and even if I took off the sharpness to do it later in photoshop the final looklike a point and shoot digital shot. This only happen with the 400mm, with other lens the render are marvelous (even with the ef-s 17-85). 400L USM not on par with the 40D? Problem resolving resolution of long lens shot?

I tend not to use AI Servo in those situations - rather, I use AIFocus. And I use spot metering.

I've also found that automatic ISO helps a lot on the 40D.

But I'm no expert.

I found the AI servo to be much faster on the 40D vs the XT, 20D & 30D in the other modes I did not notice any real difference but I am sure its more accurate than before

These are the answers I want to hear . Anything to further justify the impending purchase of an expensive new toy that I don't really HAVE to have!

Stefan