Hello, Keen amateur here with a Canon EOS 100D camera and various lenses including an EF 55-200mm zoom. I am about to go to Africa and want to have a 400mm lens for wildlife shots. The question is can I use an EF 2x III Extender (Or any other extender) with my 55-200mm lens or should I just bite the bullet and buy another lens which is an extremely expensive option?
100% go for the 400mm, i use x2 and x1.4 extenders and there are situations they work well and ones where they not the best option good times to use them, on fast zoom lenses with bright constant apertures, fast primes or very bright days, if you use them on slower aperture lenses like the 55-200mm you going to be loosing alot of light and probably the auto focus speed will slow down from my 3 years doing wildlife on canon M50 using the sigma 100-400mm and occasionally with the 150-600mm (too big and heavy to take out on quick walkabouts) the difference between using a natural reach vs an extended reach for the same focal the natural one wins every time, even if the natural one is a 100mm less the sigma 100-400mm is a fantastic wildlife lens, just on the right side of being small and light enough for hand hold walk about carry, its a lens i have had for three years and would buy it again in a heartbeat if i had to. as mentioned i have the 150-600mm, its bigger and heavier, costs a bit more but for me it was a lens i waited until i really needed it as i knew it would be a tripod only lens for me (i'm 52 years old now), the extra 200mm over the 100-400mm is most definatly worth it, just that its a lot more planning to use, as i need a tripod as well etc, the 100-400mm with my M50 attatched fits in my regular walkabout shoulde bag as for the extenders, the 600mm of the 150-600mm is far better detail than the 100-400mm with a x2 extender to 800mm, the 600mm with a x 2 is very nice at 1200mm, but i can imaging how nice it would be at a native 800mm !! so yeah, always try to get the reach you need naturally and think of the extenders as an extra bit of something rather than a primary setup
Probably not the answer that you want to hear, but I would bite the bullet. Also, is 400mm going to be long enough? Gary
