Except where noted, these are unretouched jpeg images precisely as they were generated by the camera or by conversion from camera raw (with possible white balance and/or exposure adjustments). View at "orignal" size to see image detail.

Both photos were taken from a tripod using mirror lockup and IS disengaged in AF mode on a 5D Mark II. I set exposure bias to minus 1 stop, which was accurate for the 100-400 lens, but with the 70-200+TC, I could not keep AE from blowing out the detail in most of the leaves. Since my use of a super telephoto will always utilize AF and AE, I did not consider using manual exposure for this comparison.

TC used is the Tamron SP AF 300F CA 2x.