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The Great Canon Supertele Test - From 200 to 600mm
The six contenders, with the hood mounted. From left to right: Canon 200 f/1.8 L, Canon 300 f/2.8 L IS, Canon 400 f/4 DO IS, Canon 400 f/2.8 L IS, Canon 600 f/4 L IS, Canon 800 f/5.6 L IS.
It does not happen everyday to have six of the very best Canon superteles in hands: thanks to Sandro "Ceksalo", in a cold afternoon of October 2008 I have had the opportunity to compare side-by-side my 600 f/4 IS and 300 2.8 IS with new Canon 800 f/5.6 IS, with the shorter and brighter 400 f/2.8 IS, with the interesting 400 f/4 DO and with the legendary 200 f/1.8 L (that Canon has recently replaced with the 200 f/2 IS).
The results of the test are showed in these pages. All the images are 100% crops from RAW files converted with the neutral settings (no contrast, no saturation, no sharpening); the photos had been taken with the 21 megapixel Canon 1DsIII, mounted on tripod. I have used only Canon teleconverters (1.4x II and 2x II). I have used mirror lock up and 10 seconds self timer and I manually focussed using live view.
200 and 300 millimeters
Here, I have compared the Canon 200mm f/1.8 L USM with the Canon 200mm f/1.8 L USM + 1.4x TC (280mm f/2.5) and with the Canon 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM.
200 1.8
200 f/1.8 + 1.4x
300 f/2.8
f/1.8
Not available
(the widest aperture with the teleconverter
is f/2.5)
Not available (the widest aperture is f/2.8)
f/2.8
f/4
f/5.6
f/8
Both the 200 1.8 and the 300 2.8 are extremely sharp even wide open. The 200 1.8 with the 1.4x TC is almost as sharp as the 300 2.8 IS - a truly impressive performance!
400 millimeters
Here, I have compared the Canon 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM with the Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS USM, the Canon 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM + 1.4x TC (420mm f/4) and with the 200mm f/1.8 L USM + 2x TC (400mm f/3.7).
400 f/2.8
400 f/4
300 f/2.8 + 1.4x
200 f/1.8 + 2x
f/2.8
Not available (the widest aperture is f/4)
Not available
(the widest aperture
with the teleconverter is f/4)
Not available
(the widest aperture
with the teleconverter is f/3.7)
f/4
f/5.6
f/8
Test image not usable due to
motion blur or focus error
(I'm going to repeat the test
at this aperture and to add the crop in future).
Test image not usable due to
motion blur or focus error
(I'm going to repeat the test
at this aperture and to add the crop in future).
f/11
Test image not usable due to
motion blur or focus error
(I'm going to repeat the test
at this aperture and to add the crop in future).
Test image not usable due to
motion blur or focus error
(I'm going to repeat the test
at this aperture and to add the crop in future).
The 400 f/2.8 is by far the sharpest; the 400 DO has pretty low contrast wide open, it gets better at f/5.6 but it is never as sharp as the 400 2.8. The 200 1.8, again, is truly impressive; even with the 2x TC it gives results comparable with the bare 400 f/4 DO. The 300 + 1.4x, wide open, is slightly better than the 400 DO and clearly better than 200 + 2x; at f/5.6 the differences are pretty small.
600 millimeters
Here, I have compared the Canon 600mm f/4 L IS USM with the Canon 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM + 1.4x TC (560mm f/4), the Canon 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM + 2x TC (600mm f/5.6) and Canon 200 1.8 + 1.4x + 2x (560mm f/5.0).
600 f/4
400 f/2.8 + 1.4x
300 f/2.8 + 2x
200 f/1.8 + 1.4x + 2x
f/4
Not available
(the widest aperture with the teleconverter
is f/5.6)
Not available
(the widest aperture with the teleconverters
is f/5.0)
f/5.6
f/8
f/11
f/16
The 600 f/4 is super sharp, and the 400 f/2.8 + 1.4x is almost has sharp, at every aperture - impressive. The 300 f/2.8 + 2x is clearly softer than the 600 and 400 + 1.4x at the widest aperture, while at f/8 they all looks very similar. The legendary 200 1.8 with stacked TCs still manages to give acceptable sharpness, even though there is a big loss of contrast.
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