Canon EF400mm f/5.6 USM

[mick pinner]

today l was offered one of these and compared to new prices it is a bargain, does anyone have any comments on this lens astro pic wise.
l just bought a 135mm f/2 but may fork out for this if the comments are positive. thanks.

[leon]

Mick, they are a top Super Tele Lens, great for sports and stuff like that, I was actually eying off one the other day, very popular.

This what Canon has to say.


Super Telephoto Lenses
This high-performance lens was designed with portability and handling ease in mind. One super UD-glass element, whose characteristics are similar to fluorite, and one UD-glass element result in sharp pictures from corner-to-corner.

If you find another at a good price please let me know ;)

The only thing is that they will not auto focus with either the 1.4 or 2.0 extenders attached.

leon :thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Fantastic lens. Sharp as hell, very fast to focus, makes a very nice wide field APO for deep sky imaging.. Great for sports & wildlife and many other uses... and even at the retail price, cheap for what it is....

If you've been offered a bargain, Take it!

[Dennis]

I assume it is the 400mm F5.6 L lens? I purchased one mainly for bird in flight photography and it has performed exceptionally well. I can shoot wide open at F5.6 and the lens delivers very sharp results with no evidence of CA.

This is a specialist lens for wildlife and sports photography although the relatively slow aperture of F5.6 does require reasonable light to keep the shutter speed up to avoid camera shake due to the extreme magnification of the lens.

This is a definite keeper and remarkably light weight and easy to handle although I mostly use a tripod and a gimbal mount just to minimise the potential for blurry shots. It’s not really a walk about lens for general use, although you can walk about with it as it is so lightweight for a 400mm.

I took some 30 second and 3 minute shots of the HST passing close to Jupiter and did notice some lens flare probably caused by the bright Jupiter in the frame. Using the Canon 40D with Remote Live View makes this lens easy to focus. A Bahtinov Mask would make it even easier.

If you do a search in the Forum on Canon 400mm you should find some of my bird in flight shots and a few sample astro shots.

Cheers

Dennis

[paul11]

This may help,this was taken with the 400 5.6 and a 2x TC at 800mm,,,,Paul.

[EzyStyles]

i'll go for the 400mm F2.8 L version mick instead of the F5.6L for astro use. F5.6 is relatively slow for deep sky stuff.

[Ian Robinson]

http://www.tscamerahouse.com.au/canon-ef-400mm-f28-l-is-usm-lens-p-442.html

$10,999 !!! , too pricey for me .

cf : http://www.tscamerahouse.com.au/canon-ef-400mm-f56-l-usm-lens-p-454.html

$1,929 is more affordable (even if is the inflated Aussie price from CameraHouse , ... I'd never buy one from them .... BTW.

[AlexN]

$1499 from d-d-photographics... :)

[RB]

mmm but there's a big diff in price between the 400 f2.8 and 400 f5.6.

[bojan]

You guys must be loaded with $$$...
I do not even DARE to think about new Canon lenses....
Would it not be much more cost effective to consider astrograph? Unless of course, it is supposed to be used for terrestial photography (where all those nice things like AF, IS etc count).

[EzyStyles]

wowsers, i thought might be slightly moree. that is a huge gap.

[AlexN]

If it were me I'd go an astrograph... what with already having a 300mm F/2.8, however yes, if you wanted terrestrial photos from an astrograph you'd want some pretty fast fingers to focus it/ point it and hold it steady :)