Friday, June 29, today I decided to go for a little picture at the mouth of Lake Geneva in Versoix. For that, I took my 550D with mounted above the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II and a 2x teleconverter from Sigma. You can imagine, this is to make the animal. The goal: the birds of the mouth (mallards, grebes trendiest, moorhens (coots), herons).
It's not really a story, rather a release, but I take this opportunity to tell some information about the 70-200.
Already, we must know that today it is bright sunshine (even if there is a gray veil over the sky) and it is 28 degrees. As I had pointed out my best friend: we were a little over a week (June 20). So it is with the hat, the bag, 0.5L of water, shorts, sandals and light shirt that I put myself on the way along the banks of the lake to reach the mouth 25 minutes later.
Arriving on the beach (shingle, there is no sand here), the first surprise ... hello smell! Whose fault is it or what? the answer is a few meters : the corpses of what look like dogs.
I digress for a good twenty meters, the odor is tenacious. There I go out the camera and its target, I'll leave the sun in the right direction and I began quietly in the middle of hootch 13h with a little flower growing between the rocks :

I no longer think the corpses and not feeling them anymore either, I focus on ducks opposite. There is a family of crested grebes, ducks with a red head and a kind of crest on the back of the head, beak ending in a kind of small hook and a rather slender. They go around the little cove where I am I will start with the photos when they pass by me without using the focal doubler.

I leave the doubler, and here we go again, with much more focus this time. All photos of the day will étées performed with the same settings: 1/2'000th of a second, F/5.6 and ISO 200.
And that's where the problems began. Indeed, there is a world at the sharpness of the lens with and without the doubler. Ultimately, the 70-200 is of exceptional quality ... but with a doubler, it is almost level with my old 70-300mm at 200€ in sigma.
Perhaps the doubler is not of the highest quality, but there's been a shock nonetheless. I let you see for yourself between two pictures having received the same treatment and I took out an enlargement of part 100%:

The focus were good every time. As you can imagine, the photo at left is the version without the doubler.
It's a shame that the doubling down that much the picture quality, I'll know for next time. However the doubler goes very well with the Sigma 150-500mm. Some will say that it is not at all the same line, etc. ... I never expected to still not such a difference. I still says that there is that in this configuration I see a net loss of image quality (the teleconverter and the 70-200) otherwise I did not complain of the doubler.
I want to congratulate in passing Canon 70-200 lens for their excellent optical quality with a really exceptional. It is expensive, heavy and massive, that's for sure but its quality are worth it all.
I did some more photos of swan with the doubler, one was worth it.

After enjoying the quiet for a little over an hour, only disturbed by the incessant passage of airliners over my head, I start to go quietly. Incidentally, a small photo of a bunch of white flowers and purple from a catalpa, the tree beans.

Strolling along the banks, I see a sparrow perched on a wreath in the process of observing something : as I leaned on the parapet, I see a Mallard duck in the middle of a cleaning session.

I finished writing the report and then my day with a glass of well fresh mint water. Good summer to all those who have some !