Hello everyone. I'm looking at making a purchase of a quality telephoto EF lens and I have some concerns. I own a Canon 80D and I know that there is a 1.6X crop factor with EF or EF-S lenses. My concern though is the amount of usable light available when you use an EF lens on a crop sensor camera as opposed to the full frame sensor. One of my main interests is wildlife photography and I am looking at potentially purchasing the Canon 100-400mm EF lens which has an aperture range of f4.5-5.6. My question is this: is there a significant amount of light loss in this situation and is it significant enough that I will not be able to produce sharp images when shooting wildlife in the field? Should I be looking at a 70-200 f2.8 instead, in order to help compensate for this light loss and deal with the loss of range?
Hi Michael, Welcome to the forum. There is not a significant loss of light using a full frame lens on a crop body. I use a 400mm f5.6 on a crop body without any problems at all. You will be fine with your combination. With wildlife, which lens to buy largely depends on what wildlife you plan to shoot, how big it is, and how close you can get to it. Regards Gary
thanks for your reply Gary. I'm glad to here that. I'll go ahead with my plans then. I'd love to go out and get some 2.8 lenses but some of those lenses are just so cost prohibitive. Cheers!
Welcome to the forum Micheal, looking at your question I have to ask what mode are you going to use for the shots, If you use auto then your camera will give a middle of the range in its settings, if you wish to use shutter priority then faster shutter speed can be selected and the camera does the rest. If you find that your shots are a little dark then increase your ISO. As for a purchase I suggest you take your camera along to the camera store and request to put the lens on the camera and take a few test shots at various settings and see how they come out. My next suggestion is rent the lens you are thinking of purchasing and go out and take a heap of photos of wild life. This will give you a definite idea how the photos come out and if you like the lens when using it.
I have an EF 75-300 lens that I use on both a full frame 1Ds and a crop body 20D. Apart from the extra length on the 20D I experience absolutely no difference on either body.
