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Comparison of Canon telephoto lenses
This is a comparison of a number of Canon EF telephoto lenses in the focal length range of 70 to 400 mm - or up to 1120 mm with the use of Canon EF 1.4x and 2x teleconverters (mk-I). The contestants are
Canon EF 24-105 mm f/4.0 IS L USM
Canon EF 70-200 mm f/2.8 L USM (plus 1.4x and 2x teleconverters)
Canon EF 100 mm f/2.8 USM macro
Canon EF 180 mm f/3.5 L USM macro (plus 1.4x teleconverter)
Canon EF 300 mm f/4.0 IS L USM (plus 1.4x teleconverter)
Canon EF 400 mm f/2.8 L USM mk-I (plus 1.4x, 2x and stacked teleconverters)
Images were shot at different f-stops from wide open to f/11 using a Canon EOS 10D set at ISO 100. The camera was tripod mounted on a Gitzo 1325 with a Markins M10 ballhead. Despite this reasonably stable tripod setup some shots at longer focal lengths suffer from camera-shake blur.
Images were captured as RAW and converted to 24 bit TIFF files using DPP 2.1. Sharpness was set to 0 (no sharpening), no noise reduction, and no other postprocessing has been applied to the images. 200x200 pixel crops were excised from the centre and saved as TIFF prior to conversion as JPEG files.
The comparisons
| Centre crops @ 70 to 1120 mm | |||||
|
f/2.8 (or 3.5) |
f/4.0 (or 4.5) |
f/5.6 |
f/8.0 1/500 s |
f/11 1/250 s |
|
| 24-105
@ 70 mm |
n.a. |
|
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| 70-200
@ 70 mm |
|
|
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| 24-105
@ 100 mm |
n.a. |
 |
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| 70-200
@ 100 mm |
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| 100
@ 100 mm |
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| 180
@ 180 mm |
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| 70-200
@ 200 mm |
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| 180 + 1.4x @ 250 mm |
n.a. |
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| 70-200 + 1.4x @ 280 mm |
n.a. |
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| 300
@ 300 mm |
n.a. |
 |
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| 70-200 + 2x @ 400 mm |
n.a. |
n.a. |
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| 400
@ 400 mm |
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| 300 +1.4x @ 420 mm |
n.a. | n.a. |  |
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| 400 +1.4x @ 560 mm |
n.a. |
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| 400 +2x @ 800 mm |
n.a. | n.a. |  |
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| 400 +1.4x +2x @ 1120 mm |
n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |  |
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