Canon EF 1.4x II: First Thoughts

In the search for a little more reach I’ve gone the route of teleconverters as opposed to cropping and enlarging in post production. Of course this is a bit of a challenge on a budget and while still using a none EOS-1 series camera. The first teleconverter I started with was a cheap Kenko AF 1.5x Teleplus, of course I was pairing that with a Canon EF 70-300 F/4-5.6 IS USM which isn’t supported by any Canon’s teleconverters.

This is about my first impressions of the Canon EF 1.4x II, and quite simply, wow. It’s a lot more solidly built than the Kenko I had prior. There so much less wobble and play in the lens mounts it’s not even funny. The first couple of dozen test frames, indicate that optically the 1.4x II is no slouch either; much much better than the Kenko 1.5 MC that preceded it.

The EF 1.4x II also properly reports it’s self as a teleconverter to the camera and lens. This is nice because I get correct focal lengths and aperture sizes, what’s not so nice is Canon’s AF system on non-EOS 1 series cameras disables it’s self when the max aperture is smaller than f/5.6. Of course I knew this going in, but what I didn’t know, was that when they say the AF system is disabled, they mean completely. I was hoping that the auto-focus drive would stop but the range finder/focus confirm light would at least still light up when you were “close” to having achieved focus.

That being said, this isn’t a setup that’s capable of being using with rapidly moving/changing situations, even performing the “tape trick” to stop the converter from reporting results in hugely abysmal AF performance at least on my 40D. Also I’m seeing some odd behavior with metering, specifically I’m getting between a 1/3 and a full stop underexposure shooting though the viewfinder versus using live view at least when using evaluative metering.

In the mean time, here are a couple of 100% crops from today initial testing.

EF 1.4x II Sample 1

EF 1.4x II Sample 2