Out of curiosity, I thought it would be interesting to see how the 400-800 compares with the 200-600 with the 1.4x tc. This is just a comparison of backyard bird images that I have, so there is no control. My collection of image of backyard birds photographed with the 200-600 with the 1.4 tc is very small, so I only picked one image from that set to compare.
Image shot with the 200-600 and 1.4x was on a different camera though - that was the A7R4A, which has a higher resolution than the A1 which was used for the three images shot with the 400-800. I don't know how much difference that makes, but stating it for completeness.
For the comparison, I also chose images shot at the same shutter speed (1/4000) and ISO (5000). These settings were chosen because they were the closest that I could get with the images that I have. The image that was shot with the 200-600 with the 1.4x was at 783mm, so not quite at 800mm, as the other three. In LR, one image was denoised and sharpened. I took those settings and applied them directly to the other three images so that all of those changes were identical in all four images. I will show the full frame images and then a tight crop. The crop is also identical for all four images.
The only real difference is that the image shot with the 200-600 with the 1.4x is at f/11 whereas the images shot with the 400-800 are at f/8. The higher resolution sensor may be playing a role here as well.
In comparing, these all look pretty close to me. The image shot with the 200-600 with 1.4x looks slightly better, but that may owe more to depth of field than actual sharpness.
Mar 09, 2026 at 12:21 PM
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