I just received my 100-300L from B&H and was curious about using a canon 1.4X teleconverter with it. It looks as though the teleconverter will fit. Will it work properly?

-- John Hunt (jagerjl@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001

Answers

Canon does not list this lens as being compatible with their 1.4x and 2x extenders. You have to buy a third-party extender.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), October 16, 2001.

according to the Canon lens brochure the 100-300L would have no trouble with the protruding lens element of the teleconverter. Depending on your camera you may loose autofocus or not, the resulting aperture will be close to f/8. Only Eos-3 and maybe 1v will autofocus at this opening.

-- Jos van Eekelen (jos@compuserve.com), October 16, 2001.

I'd really rather people not guess the answers to these questions!

No, it won't work because it won't fit. A 3rd party TC is your only option with this lens.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.

The ONLY zooms on which the Canon extenders will fit/work properly: EF 100-400 L IS, EF 70-200 F2.8L, EF 70-200 F2.8L IS and EF 70-200 F4L. The converters will not fit on any other zoom lenses.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), October 17, 2001.

Sorry Bob, I was only trying to help. Since you are so sure that the 100-300L and TC won't work together, can you explain why? AFAIK the reason Canon TC's won't work with most lenses is because of the protruding front element. Are there other issues at hand? I know that Canon doesn't list the 100-300L as compatible with the TC's but I've heard of other people who use the TC with other lenses as well.

-- Jos van Eekelen (jos@compuserve.com), October 17, 2001.

You can tell if a lens will work with the TCs by looking at the back of the lens. If there are 5 gold contacts on the raised portion of the contacts, the lens is not TC compatible. TC compatible lenses have 3 extra contacts, giving a total of 8 on the raised portion.

-- Isaac Sibson (Isibson@hotmail.com), October 18, 2001.