Barred

Last weekend I received from Canon the Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM to test. Given that it’s February, my “big” subjects (like bears) are on vacation (also known as hibernation), so I took to the parks in Calgary to snap off as many shots as possible with the lens, to get a feel for how it performed.

I’ve had the chance to quickly go through some of the images, and based on gut feel, the image quality is that this lens produces is really quite good.

I found the autofocus to be a little slower than I was expecting, especially when attached to extenders, and I became quite frustrated with the minimum focus distance of 11 feet, which seems like a lot, until you have a Downy Woodpecker land on the perfect perch 10 feet away.

While I compile all my thoughts into a comprehensive blog post, I figured I would share one image that I took that I was quite impressed with. This Barred Owl was shot with the Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM with a 2.0x III Canon Extender attached to the Canon 1DX Mark II, and given that it was shot with the 2x extender, it is really quite impressive.

More on this lens to follow, but if you have specific questions in the meantime, feel free to contact me at [email protected].