Canon EF 70-200mm F4L

[WoZZeR]

OK, so I rented the EF 70-200mm F4 L USM non IS for the weekend as am thinking of buying one as a general purpose walkabout lens.

Compared to my EF 75-300 USM III it is very sharp, the shorter reach is more than compensated for with far more detail. In fact quite a revelation to me. I did struggle with the exposure a bit as I was used to underexposing on the 75-300 and it seems there is no need to do this on the 70-200.

So, the only thing that I don't like about it is minimum focus distance of 1.2m.

Question, according to assorted websites a 25mm extension tube will increase magnification from 0.21 to 0.34 or 0.36 and decrease the minimum focus distance.

Is this noticable in the real world?

And/or does anybody have any examples please?

EDIT: Just croppped an image taken with my old 350D and the 70-200mm F4L pixel for pixel or whatever it's called, anyway, not resampled:

 

[WoZZeR]

The MFD should decrease to 0.75m in that scenario.

Whether that is important to you depends entirely on what you want to shoot. The 1.2m MFD is standard for such a lens..

This isn't a macro lens and even with the extension tube you are not close to macro territory.
To help you understand a macro ratio of 1.0 (1:1) means something the size of the sensor will cover the whole sensor, something 2cm in real life will be 2cm on the sensor, so knowing the sensor size you know how much of the frame this takes up. 0.5 (or 1:2) means something 2cm in real life will be 1cm on the sensor.

Thus the macro factor you just multiply by the object size to get the size on the sensor.

Cheers for that, I am not seeking macro as it happens, just perhaps getting your common or garden butterfly, dragonfly or flower a little larger.

0.75m sounds OK, might do the trick.

Cheers

 

[WoZZeR]

Excellent news, thanks for the research, it's always difficult to visualise what figures and numbers mean in real life.

I think I will go for this lens, it seems to have little if any CA and isn't too heavy to cart about all day. Hopefully it will work well when I move up to full frame in the near future.

I took 2377 piccies on Saturday with it and 127 today, so I have given it a work out...... Nightmare sifting through the images though.

 

[WoZZeR]

I did rent a 1.4 Mk III Extender with it.

I tested it indoors on a tripod and it didn't look as if it was much better than the 75-300.

However, out in the real world it did a hell of a better job with some Great 'not finches' than the 75-300. My best ever Great 'not finches' piccies.

I should have tried using the extender on some smaller closer stuff but it didn't cross my mind at the time.

Original word for popular small bird was starred out......