The Canon 200-400 f/4 L IS 1.4x is without a doubt the most anticipated piece of glass to ever come out of the Canon factory. Through a combination of factors; lack of a competitor to Nikon’s 200-400 in the lineup and a very early development announcement of this lens, photographers everywhere have itched to get their hands on one. As soon as the official announcement was made I was on the phone with my local camera store arranging to get one as soon as they came into Canada. The first Canadian shipment contained just 7 lenses and I missed out on that one but just a couple of weeks later another small batch came in and I was assigned my lens. This was some time ago now and I deliberately held off from publishing my review until I really felt like I had put it through its paces. That’s something that I really want to abide by here on Shutter Muse, we don’t crank out reviews as fast as possibly based solely on test charts and studio scenes. These are reviews complied after extensive real world testing across a range of shooting situations. This lens in particular suits quite a wide range of shooting scenarios so I wanted to make sure that I had ample time to test is for sports, airshow and wildlife photography; the three scenarios where I saw potential for this to be an excellent lens choice. Without a doubt the most popular usage for this lens will be wildlife photography so much of this review is illustrated by some recent images from a trip to Vancouver Island to shoot black bears during the autumn salmon run.

Unboxing video

Video Review

Lens Details

Focal Length – 200-400mm (560 with built-in extender)

Weight – 7.98 lb (3.62 kg)

Dimensions: Approx. 5.04 x 14.41″ (128.02 x 366.01 mm)

Magnification: 0.15x

Minimum focus distance: 6.56′ (2.00 m)

Diaphragm blades: 9

Aperture: Max f/4 , Min f/32

Canon 200-400 @400mm , f/5.6, iso 3200, 1/250 with a Canon 5D Mark 3

400mm wide open at f/4

The wide open performance of this lens is stellar. f/4, iso 3200 with Canon 5D Mark3

Built in 1.4x extender

I felt this needed its own quick section to show a specific video of the switch and the action of engaging the extender. Whilst a built-in extender is new in photographic lenses, they’ve actually been employed for a long time in ENG or “news gathering” lenses in the television world. It’s a wonder it’s taken someone so long to take this idea to the stills world but it makes sense that Canon did since they are make ENG lenses for the TV cameras as well and I’m sure they borrowed some knowledge from that department. The main benefit of having the extender be part of the lens is that each one is optically matched to the rest of the lens. In essence, they are designed as one whereas normally you would buy a separate extender from a store that needs to work with all suitable lenses. The result, in theory, is a much sharper pairing than you would normally get when using a regular extender.

As you can see in the images, the bulge on the side of the lens is quite noticeable, though it doesn’t impede the handling at all in the field. The switch to engage the extender is large and easy to use with gloves on which is good for cold weather shooting. Flicking the switch is a smooth, positive action that results in a small “clunk” as the glass element seats itself in the barrel. There’s also a lock switch next to it that you can engage to either prevent it from going into 1.4x mode, or keep it there.

Canon 200-400 with 1.4x engaged at 560mm, f/6.3, iso 2000, 1/400 on a Canon 5D Mark 3

The extender proved to work very well. I have used all manner of super telephoto lenses in the past with 1.4x extenders so I’m very familiar with typical results and I would say that this performs better, but only by a very slight margin. There’s a slight amount of IQ reduction with the extender engaged and whilst it’s definitely possible to tell images apart (those with and without extender), it’s only really possible once you have the images side by side. I tested myself blind and was caught out several times thinking the image did not have the extender engaged when in fact it did, so that’s a good sign. I’d say that it’s more noticeable in certain lighting situations and micro contrast is the area that gets weakened. I did not see any major vignetting or chromatic aberration caused by the extender, even when shooting wide open at f/5.6 which is where I shot most of my “extender engaged” images. I think that’s where a lot of wildlife images will be shot, but if you stop down to f/8 then there is a small increase in contrast. We can talk about “a little this” and “a small amount of that” until the cows come home but all you really need to do is take a look at the image below. Yes this is one of the images that caught me out when I did my blind testing. I had to check and double-check again when I saw the EXIF said 560mm f/5.6. Just stunning.

Wide open!! Canon 200-400 with 1.4x extender engaged. Wide open at f/5.6, iso 3200, 1/500 with a Canon 5D Mark3

Crop from above image with the 1.4x engaged and wide open!!

The most noticeable difference to me was the AI Servo tracking accuracy. I noticed immediately that there was some degradation in AF speed and accuracy with the extender engaged. Not so much that it would be problematic, and this is always expected when a lens becomes a native f/5.6 instead of /f4. Less light=slower AF. It’s worth remembering this though and it’s for this reason that this lens isn’t going to replace the 400mm f2.8 for full-time sports photographers.

This guy’s taking the more relaxed approach to fishing. Canon 200-400 @560mm with the built in extender engaged

It’s all about the flexibility!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUcjGILiaN4

Let’s take a look at some specific examples from my recent bear trip to Vancouver Island, particularly concentrating on the ability to capture many different images of one subject very quickly. This is really where this lens sets itself apart from anything else because whilst Nikon shooters have enjoyed their 200-400 for many years now, they’ve always had to remove the camera from the lens to add an extender if they wanted to. Most animals don’t sit still for too long (yes I know there are several images of bears sitting down in this review but trust me they didn’t stay there long), and so taking that extra time to put on the extender can easily make the difference between getting the shot and not.

Here’s a shot of a bear at 200mm. A nice shot to show the bear in his habitat of British Columbia’s West Coast.

Now here’s a shot of the bear at 400mm.

And finally a shot at 560mm by flicking the “awesome switch” as I might start to call it.

All of these shots are perfectly useable but all of them are very different, yet they were all captured within just a few seconds of each other. You can tell because the bear hasn’t changed position at all. If I had stood in the same spot with a 500mm or a 600mm lens I would just have the one type of shot, unless I was carrying a second camera with another lens attached. Something which nobody wants to do if you’re already carrying a super tele lens on a tripod over your other shoulder! Personally I’m always a big fan of giving my subject some space around them to show their place on this earth. I gravitate to this style of shot all the time because I tend like people to imagine themselves in the same place I was when I took the shot. That’s not really possible when the subject is filling the frame. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always a use for that style of image as well, and particularly if you are working for a magazine it’s good to give them options, but my preference tends towards the wider shots. This lens allows me to get all the options and do it quickly without fuss. It also allows you to be a little more creative with your compositions since you aren’t forced into one filed of view. With a long prime lens, and particularly with sports and wildlife, you can’t always chose where you want to stand. By the time You’ve repositioned yourself the moment has gone, but at least with a zoom you have some instant ability to explore some compositional variations to make up for any shortcomings in your positions at that time. In other words, you’ll find yourself using things like 337mm or 248mm, not just 200,400 and 560mm.

The zoom allowed me to give this bear cub some space and put him in the scene as I shot this at 280mm

But then punch in right away to 560mm for a totally different shot just a second later

Use with an additional 1.4x extender

This section to the review was added in February 2014

It’s possible to add an additional 1.4x extender to the Canon 200-400 and use this in conjunction with the built-in extender. This yields a 784mm f/8 lens. As a lens with a native f/8 aperture though your focus options are currently limited to usage with the Canon 5D Mark 3 and the EOS-1D X (at time of writing, October 2013) if you want to maintain the ability to auto focus. With either of these cameras you can use the central AF point, the Spot AF mode on the center point or the center point with four surrounding points in a cross configuration.

Canon 200-400 with internal AND external 1.4x extenders. 784mm, 1/1250, f/10, iso2000

I was very curious to see whether this combination would yield useable results! Renowned avian photographer Art Morris was saying some very good things about this and since I already owned a 1.4x III extender it was an easy test. I settled on shooting bald eagles in the Squamish Valley at the end of the salmon run. After the salmon have spawned they die and their carcasses are washed to the mouth of the river where the eagles gather for an annual feast. In this particular area, the eagles are extremely timid though and so a long reach is a must if you are to capture good photos. 784mm should do the trick!

Canon 200-400 with internal AND external 1.4x extenders. 784mm, 1/1250, f/10, iso1250

Once again I really just want to let the images do the talking for the most part. I was floored when I saw the quality that I was able to get when my own long lens techniques were on point (sharp images become exponentially harder as your lens gets longer!). The focus on static subjects was accurate and fast and even AI Servo was useable for birds in flight. Something I really wasn’t expecting. All the time this was on the 5D Mark III, the EOS-1D X would likely have been even better. It was noticeable slower than using it without the added external extender, but that’s to be expected of course. The biggest struggle with moving subjects and this combination was the limitation to the central AF points. It means you really can’t get an ideal composition unless you plan on cropping the image afterwards. With static subjects though I was just amazed at the sharpness of the images even wide open at f/8. Stop down to f/10 or f/12 and there was a small increase in detail but in all honesty, larger changes can come from poor lens technique at this point. I didn’t shy away from shooting wide open which was another huge surprise to me. Instantly I have gone from not bothering to bring an extender with me when I use this lens, to taking one every single time. I know I have harped on and on about flexibility with this lens but it simply can’t be underlined enough. Knowing now that I can add this extra extender and get useable results means a 200-784mm lens in my bag and that means I can be prepared for just about anything!

Canon 200-400 @784mm

Should you look at this as a replacement to an 800mm? No you shouldn’t. The IQ difference between the 800mm f/5.6 and this lens at 784mm is pretty big and the limitation to central AF points is a definite consideration. If you were thinking about buying an 800mm then this won’t replace it but what it might do is ease the concerns of some folks who are weighing up the 200-400 vs either the 500mm or the 600mm. Certainly for wildlife, once again, this lens has proven to me that it’s worth every penny and it makes it a useable lens for avian photography, which typically needs longer lengths due to the smaller size of the subjects. I was quite happy to mount the external extender on the lens and shoot all day flicking the internal extender on and off at will to go from 560mm to 784mm.

Not just for wildlife

As I mentioned, this post is pretty heavy on the wildlife images because I think that will be the main use for it. There are however plenty of other uses for it and one of those is airshow and aircraft photography. The most popular Canon lenses for this type of photography are the 100-400 and the 500mm. Those who shoot Nikon often use the 200-400 though and I think that the Canon 200-400 is also going to prove to be the ultimate lens for this type of shooting. I took the lens out to the Abbotsford airshow this summer to test is out and I found it to perform admirably. With single planes flying around, 400mm or 560mm proved to be about right in most cases, but with formation flying it was great to be able to zoom out a bit. Again the flexibility proved worthwhile, able to capture a full formation of 10 aircraft at 200mm or 300mm followed quickly by a tighter shot of pairs of aircraft as they pulled off to fly their syncro routines. The main issue with using such a big lens for aircraft was that you really want to try to keep it on a gimbal (see next section), but then the aircraft fly directly over head you can’t really pan up like that. I ended up mixing it up between gimbal, monopod and hand-held and I can’t say I really figured out the best solution. Hand holding was probably the most successful, but some people may not find that possible.

Accessories for the Canon 200-400

My setup. Canon 200-400 on a Really Right Stuff PG-02 gimbal.

There’s a couple of things that I consider to be must-have accessories for this lens. Firstly you are going to need to use some sort of gimbal head if you are doing serious wildlife photography with it. It’s possible to hand-hold the lens for a short while but in the low light of dusk and dawn this will really hurt your keeper rate when those shutter speeds are low. Using this lens on my Really Right Stuff PG-02 gimbal I was able to consistently get sharp images of the Vancouver Island bears at 560mm and shutter speeds less than 1/100 second. This kept my ISO down at a very useable 3200 for the most part, even with the dense West Coast rainforest surrounding me at times. There’s really only two gimbals on the market that are worth looking it: the aforementioned PG-02 from Really Right Stiff, and the Wimberley. The Wimberley head has been around a lot longer than the one from RRS so there is a lot more of them in the field but I’m seeing more and more people pick up the RRS heads. Whilst it’s known that I’m a big RRS fan, it’s for a very good reason. For me their head wins out for two reasons. Firstly it breaks into two distinct pieces which then clamp back together parallel to each other making it a very small package for travel. Secondly the head can also be used as a single row or multi row panoramic head. If you’re going on a big trip and you aren’t quite sure what you’re going to find then it’s awesome to know you’ve got that pano kit there if you need it. I very often use the panning base part of the PG-02 for my pano images and it’s just lovely to work with. If you’re using a gimbal head then you’ll also need an arca-swiss style plate to go on the foot of the lens. In fact RRS makes a full foot replacement instead which saves a bit of weight and looks totally badass in black! I have the replacement foot on mine as you see in the images below, and the long mounting point gives you plenty of sliding room to balance your kit on the gimbal.

The second thing I would consider to be necessary is a rain jacket for the lens. You never know what kind of weather you’ll have to endure and whilst I typically find that I don’t use covers a lot, those few times I do need them, they’re worth their weight in gold. Especially when you’re protecting a $12,000 lens! My preference is the Think Tank Hydrophobia 300-600 V3. I like the seam sealed zippers, the included front lens cap and the double tight straps at the front to hold it on. A cover like this can also be very useful in a sandy or dusty environment. With a zoom ring on this lens you do have to try not to get too much sand and grit in there, something that’s not normally a concern with super telephoto prime lenses.

For my lens I also have a LensCoat lens cover and a TravelCoat. The TravelCoat is just a neoprene sleeve that I put around the lens when I put it into my backpack and the lens cover is a segmented cover designed to stay on the lens most of the time. I don’t really buy into the camouflage idea that it will stop your subject from getting spooked by your lens, but I do believe it prevents excess damage when lying in the dirt which could otherwise detract considerably from the re-sale value. That said…I’ll probably be buried with this lens so selling it isn’t really on my mind but I don’t like to see it get scratched up. Your mileage may vary!

Other Alternatives

No purchase of this size can be carried out before thoroughly weighing up the alternatives. For the wildlife shooters out there the alternatives are more than likely then Canon 500mm f4/4 L II and the Canon 600mm f/4 L II with a smattering of folks looking at the 300mm and converters. It used to be the case that the 500mm f/4 was the standard choice for wildlife due to the fact that if necessary you could still use it handheld where the 600mm was too heavy and cumbersome. When Canon released version II of their super telephoto lenses though they shaved an incredible amount of weight off them, to the point where the new 600mm is roughly equal in weight to the old 500mm. I’ve definitely seem more than a couple of folks switch to the 600m now because of this. In terms of bulk and weight, the Canon 200-400 sits squarely between the 500 and the 600 in terms of weight. 7.98lbs for the 200-400, 7.04lbs for the 500mm and 8.65lbs for the new 600mm. It’s a heavy lens, of that there is no doubt, but it’s not so much heavier than the 500mm II that I would say that should be a deciding factor in a decision. Neither is it that much lighter than the 600 that this would be a factor. In reality they are all capable of short periods of hand-held shooting, but are all going to need a tripod and gimbal for extended periods. An area that might make some difference is the length and girth of the lens. The 500 and the 200-400 are very similar, only about 15mm difference in length, but the 600 ads about another 60mm on the end and quite a bit more girth. The result is that traveling with the 600mm lens needs a much larger bag. For example, the 600mm will not fit in the Gura Gear Battaflae 26L, you need to step up to the 32L. The same goes for several other bag manufacturers like Think Tank as well, the 600mm will require something larger to put it in even though the weight difference is relatively minor. For me this is a big win for the smaller two lenses, but I’m a big fan of packing light and not being encumbered by your gear. Your mileage may vary on that point.

If we’re just considering focal lengths then the 500 and 600 options have the upper hand with both being able to take 1.4x extenders and produce excellent 700mm and 840mm options. Whether you really need those sort of lengths will depend on your subject. For sports I don’t think it’s necessary but for wildlife It may well be depending on where you are shooting. In Botswana for example a 200-400 is a great option, whereas in Kenya things can be a little further away and need something more in the 600-700 range. Of course this just takes into consideration ultimate reach and not the flexibility provided by the 200-400 zoom which for me outweighs most if not all the negatives of a slightly shorter maximum range.

Price wise there isn’t a lot to choose between them. At time of writing the 500 is $10,200, the 200-400 is $11,900 and the 600mm is $12,800. In reality they are all bloody big numbers and if you’re considering a lens in this sort of price bracket an extra $1000 up or down likely isn’t the main factor for you. A 300mm f2.8 L II with both 1.4x and 2x extenders is going to give you some decent results as well, and at $6700 it’s a much cheaper option, but for more than only occasional usage with wildlife I wouldn’t really recommend it unless you are using it alongside a 600mm or an 800mm as a second lens in which case it makes a nice partner and is blisteringly sharp at 300mm!

Conclusion

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is Canon’s greatest ever achievement in their lens lineup; an optical masterpiece. Over the last five years we’ve seen them work on an increasingly impressive range of zoom lenses that challenge the popular though that primes rule all else. This is no longer the case. My day-to-day grab bag for photography now features the 8-15mm f/4 L fisheye zoom, the HIGHLY underrated 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS, the new 24-70 f2.8 L II and the 200-400 f4 L IS. All zoom lenses. The 200-400 is just the icing on the cake though, and I’ve no qualms about declaring it the best wildlife photography lens on the market, from any manufacturer. Canon lost a few wildlife shooters due to their lack of a 200-400 in the lineup but I dare say they’re going to gain a few back again with this lens. It would be a good enough lens if it was just a 200-400 but the inclusion of the 1.4x extender elevates its versatility to a whole other level. It should almost be referred to as the Canon 200-560 because there’s little reason to not make use of the extender. The difference between an image at 200mm and at 560mm is vast and the ability to grab those two shots just a second apart means that you come back from your wildlife trip, or your sporting assignment with a much wider array of photos.

For many, the question is going to be “Is it worth the money?”. For professional Canon wildlife photographers, yes, it’s absolutely worth it. I don’t take these sums of money lightly, and I’ve rarely, if ever, been so direct with my response to such a question. You can spend many thousands of dollars getting to a location and waiting for your subject. Coming away from an encounter with a wider range of images is only going to increase your sales and give your clients with a choice of images. Not only do you get that range of images from the tight portrait to the wider, scenic, animal-in-landscape shot; you also get some creative freedom for framing all those images instead of being forced into a composition with a 500 or 600mm prime. Sometimes with wildlife and sports you don’t get to choose exactly where you want to stand so the zoom range give you some freedom to create a more pleasing composition. If you aren’t a professional who’s making money from their images then it’s unlikely you’ll be considering this lens. If you are lucky enough to have this kind of money at your disposal, to spend on your pastime, then you simply won’t be disappointed. As I said in the un-boxing video, I think every photography fan should experience the excitement of unwrapping a super telephoto lens at some point in their life.

What about sports photography though? I know that I concentrated heavily on wildlife in this review but I know that a lot of sports photographers will be considering this lens as well. Just a few years ago it would be unthinkable to approach a sporting event professionally with an f/4 lens, but times have changed and cameras like the 1D-X deliver high ISO results that more than compensate for the stop of light that this loses over something the Canon 400mm f2.8 L II. My thoughts are that if you are primarily shooting sports then the 400mm prime lens is likely to still be your workhorse though. If your work takes on a broader range of subjects, more photojournalistic, then the Canon 200-400 is a perfect partner to the venerable 70-200. Many people follow me because of my winter sports work and for this as well the Canon 200-400 is the new king as far as I’m concerned. It’s long enough for me to shoot big mountain skiing in Alaska, and versatile enough that I can just pack a 24-70 alongside it and be good for a day in the mountains. For major sporting event coverage like the Olympics this would be the lens I want in my hand, paired with a 600mm f/4.

If a $12,000 lens is never going to be an option for you then don’t forget that you can always rent it for your once-in-a-lifetime wildlife safari from Lens Rentals.

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