The camera was a Canon 30D, and the lenses were a 24-70 2.8L and a 200 2.8L along with an Extender 2X II.
Reviews:
| 30D: | Fred Miranda | DPReview | Digital Picture | ||
| 24-70 2.8: | Fred Miranda | Castleman | PhotoZone | Luminous Landscape | SLR Gear |
| 200 2.8: | Fred Miranda | Digital Picture | PhotoZone | SLR Gear | |
| 2X Extender: | Fred Miranda | Luminous Landscape | |||
The shot distances were at 20 times the focal length, eg., the 200 mm was set at 4 m away. The notable exception was the zoom lens at 24 mm, as it required moving the camera back to 630 mm, implying that either the lens was longer (31.5 mm) or the object distance should actually be measured from way out on the lens, and not the sensor plane. All the shots were taken remotely from a tripod with mirror lockup enabled on a 2 s timer to ensure maximum quality.
I also included two shots with the 200 mm at the 400 mm distance, and scaled them doubly to directly compare the 2X Extender performance. As you may see, using the 2X gives a significantly better image.
Select image thumbnail for 1:1 cropped version, image name for information:
| f 2.8 | f 5.6 | f 8.0 | |
| 24 mm, 630 mm distance |
24 mm 2.8 (600x400 56KB) |
24 mm 5.6 (600x400 52KB) |
24 mm 8.0 (600x400 60KB) |
| 70 mm, 1.4 m distance |
70 mm 2.8 (600x400 54KB) |
70 mm 5.6 (600x400 59KB) |
70 mm 8.0 (600x400 61KB) |
| 200 mm, 4 m distance |
200 mm 2.8 (600x400 53KB) |
200 mm 5.6 (600x400 60KB) |
200 mm 8.0 (600x400 60KB) |
| 400 mm (Ext. 2X), 8 m distance |
400 mm 5.6 (600x400 49KB) |
400 mm 8.0 (600x400 55KB) | |
|
200 mm, 8 m distance
doubly sized |
2 x 200 mm 2.8 (600x400 36KB) |
2 x 200 mm 5.6 (600x400 40KB) |
2 x 200 mm 8.0 (600x400 42KB) |