At Photokina, Canon showed a prototype of a 200-400mm lens with a built-in 1.4x extender. The lens could ship as soon as this year.
Stephen Shankland
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Canon's EF 200-400mm f/4L IS lens, shown here in prototype form at the Photokina show, includes a built-in 1.4x focal-length extender.
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Canon 200-400mm's 1.4x extender
A close-up showing the housing for the 1.4x focal-length extender. The switch can be locked to keep the lens in one position or another.
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Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS settings panel
The 200-400mm prototype includes a number of manual controls. Image stabilization can be turned on and off, a focus preset can be set in advance to ease autofocusing, a newer power focus (PF) mode is available for smooth motor-driven focus changes while shooting video, and range can be limited from 2m to 6m or from 6m to infinity.
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Canon supertelephoto lens lineup at Photokina
The wide-aperture supertelephoto lineup from Canon includes a 400mm f2.8 lens, the forthcoming 200-400mm f4 lens, the 500mm f4 lens, the 600mm f4 lens, and the 800mm f5.6 lens.
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Canon 200-400mm's 1.4x extender bulge
The 200-400mm lens has a noticeable bulge where the 1.4x extender resides when not engaged.
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Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS with 1.4x extender
Canon's 200-400m f/4L IS lens has a large objective lens -- but not as large as the brighter 400mm f/2.8 lens Canon also sells.
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Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS with 1.4x extender
The lens has a distance gauge built in. The knob is for adjusting the tripod-mount ring so the camera can be rotated from portrait to landscape orientation.
