Lens Impressions

The Canon 1.4x II extender has been a very useful addition to my camera bag. It's small and works well with my zoom lenses. The only drawback is that what you gain in focal length, you lose in light - one stop to be precise. However, this is an improvement over the 2x extender which has a two stop light penalty.

Using the extender doesn't affect the minimum focusing distance of the lens. Some of the bug shots above were taken at roughly the minimum focusing distance of the 300mm F4L IS.

All of my current lenses have a maximum aperture of F4. When I add the extender, that maximum aperture is effectively decreased to F5.6. On my xxD bodies the autofocus still works at F5.6. However, if I were to use the extender with a lens that had a maximum aperture of F5.6, it would be decreased to F8 and then the autofocus wouldn't work.

If you use a professional EOS-1 series camera it won't be a problem because these bodies autofocus at F8. Alternatively, I have read lots of reports about people putting tape over certain electrical contacts on the lens to get round this problem.

I have no experience of doing this so can make no comments.

Another comment that I have read repeatedly is that the extender degrades image quality. I guess the logic is that the more elements you place in between the sensor (or film) and subject, then the more the image will be degraded.

But in practice, is that the case? Click on the photos above to get a larger version and judge for yourself whether you think the image quality has been degraded.

The photos above are of the same subject so that you can make a comparison. Where there are four photos of the same subject I have kept the magnification aspects the same so you can see what difference the extender makes to the size of the subject.

Images used for comparison had exactly the same post-processing applied. There may be slight differences with the exposure due to the composition being different with each lens combination.

Post-Processing

Most original images were shot in the RAW format and converted with Adobe Camera Raw. Noise was reduced using Imagenomic Noiseware Professional. Small amounts of image enhancement were applied using Adobe Photoshop CS2 (curves, levels, saturation) before sharpening using the Smart Sharpen filter (Amount: 30% - 120%, Radius: 0.2px - 0.3px, Remove: Lens Blur).

JPG images were saved with a 'High' quality setting of '8' on a scale of 0-12.

Caveat

This isn't a review. If you want MTF charts and comparisons with other lenses, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. However, there are plenty of excellent sites around that offer this kind of information.

Just as with audio equipment, a list of specifications doesn't mean very much. My old original Quad Electrostatics never looked very good on paper but once fired up they had the ability to make hairs stand up all over your body.

With photography I prefer to look at photos of real things and real people that evoke emotion, rather than look at MTF charts or other meaningless images.