On this page you will find all sorts of tips, hints and general information on all things to do with Canon DSLRs.
I must stress that you do any of these actions at your own risk and 'you' take full responsibility should anything go wrong.
But having said that I have tried the actions here and found them work for me, plus I wouldn't do it if I thought it was going to damage my precious equipment. But whether you do or no is up to you and whether you're willing to risk it or not.
All the best.
Dean Michell
Taping the pins on your Canon 1.4x Extender
On of the major limitation and disappointments of owning the Canon 1.4x Extender was not being able to use it with auto-focus on any lens that had a smaller aperture of f/4.0, which basically meant it could only be used on the best (and most expensive) of Canon's 'L' series lenses.
Why Canon chose to impose this limitation is something only they can answer. It turns out it is a deliberate and artificial limitation imposed by them, not a mechanical limitation of the equipment.
So how do you get around it? Well its quite simple. Not only does this work, but I can't see it can cause any damage to your equipment, and by doing it you get to use your converter far more frequently or may actually persuade you to buy one.
All you have to do is put some thin (Scotch) type tape over three (3) pins and voila, you can now use it on your other lenses.
I've tested it out on my Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS zoom lens and it works a treat. Before taping the pins it would just hunt and hunt without focusing, so I was stuck to manual only focus.
Because of the design of the extender there are many lenses which it just physically won't work with like my 20 year old Canon EF 100-300 f/4.5-5.6 but at least this way I get to use it with a couple more of my lenses.
Below are two picture of what I did;
Just to be clear, the tape goes over the pins, which are located on the side that the lens attaches to. You will notice that the other side of the extender has connector plates, not pins, so you really can't go wrong.
Those lucky enough to have a 1D or 1Ds Canon don't have to do this as they don't have this limitation.
I don't have a Canon 2.0x Extender, but I'm lead to believe that this modification doesn't work on them. Maybe someone who has one can try it an let me know.
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