Canon Patent Application: Let’s go long
- Thread starter Richard CN
- Start date
Canon RF 400-600mm F2.8-4.0
I would be a buyer of this lens. Especially if they can keep it to within ~3Kg
Two of the best wildlife lenses available in one, right there.
I would be a buyer of this lens. Especially if they can keep it to within ~3Kg
Two of the best wildlife lenses available in one, right there.
Upvote
0
The 300-600/2.8-4.5 is very interesting to me. Dropping that front element width to 133 something from 150 mm might make for a significant weight reduction. Maybe this is a dream but 7 pounds, perhaps. A third of a stop is pretty much meaningless these days with the noise levels of modern sensors coupled with modern software. And in writing that, may as well add that a 300-600/2.8-5.6 at six pounds or a bit less might be even more attractive.
Upvote
0
I've always been a 600 f/4 guy, but each time I've gotten one (almost always at least a model behind, and used), I've considered getting the 400 f/2.8. Being able to essentially have both would be amazing.
CPS is sending me the 100-300 f/2.8 for the third week of August, when I'm expecting the nighthawks to migrate through. Also borrowing an R3 for the purpose, in case we get them low over the fields, as we do once every few years, preventing the need for cropping and allowing the 24mp to be most useful. But I'll be relying on my 600mm/r5 for the most part. Having the two in one lens would be worth a lot, as switching between swoops is impractical. It'd be like shooting a soccer game where the players went up and down the field at 50 miles per hour and in 3 dimensions. The point is: being able to start off wider and zoom in while shooting is a critical help to certain types of shooting. These new designs will get me overly-hopeful again.
CPS is sending me the 100-300 f/2.8 for the third week of August, when I'm expecting the nighthawks to migrate through. Also borrowing an R3 for the purpose, in case we get them low over the fields, as we do once every few years, preventing the need for cropping and allowing the 24mp to be most useful. But I'll be relying on my 600mm/r5 for the most part. Having the two in one lens would be worth a lot, as switching between swoops is impractical. It'd be like shooting a soccer game where the players went up and down the field at 50 miles per hour and in 3 dimensions. The point is: being able to start off wider and zoom in while shooting is a critical help to certain types of shooting. These new designs will get me overly-hopeful again.
Upvote
0
Yes, I’ve owned all three. I don’t ever use Sigma because of these lenses…compared to Canon they are not in the same league.
The 100-300/4 was an interesting optic, however the canon 70-200/2.8 lis II with a 1.4x tc was a far superior lens in every measurable way.
Upvote
0
Of the designs, the 400/2.8 - 600/4 is the most appealing. It’s basically a 400/2.8 with a zooming 1.4 tc…a very nice feature
Upvote
0
I’ve just had a thought….Canon could easily cover most of the same range with existing primes if they offered a 1-1.4x zooming TC and a 1-2.0x zooming TC instead.
Upvote
0
I think we can be sure that at least no 500mm f/4 prime update from Canon will ever come. The main original reason for the fast 500mm prime line was the fact, that the original 600mm f/4 lenses were extremely heavy. So, the 500 was still a lens that you could carry a substantial hike and some photographers were even able to shoot it free-hand. Now, the latest EF and current RF 600mm f/4 lenses are about 3 kg, that's exactly the weight of the vintage EF 500mm f/4.5 lens I still use (and shoot free-hand). So, the historical reason for keeping both prime lines alive are gone today. Since both lenses today would address the same market, Canon would only push production costs up in a probably non-linear way since they would not only divide this market between two lenses but in addition lose scaling effects by the number of produced copies.
I also guess that if Canon decides to go for an f/4 or f/4.5 300-600mm zoom with about the same weight and compact size, they would stop producing the 600mm prime. The prime then would only make sense if Canon could drop its price substantially compared to the zoom, and I do not see that opportunity, it is a too specialized market.
Upvote
0
Looking at the longer side of the tele world, Sigma also discontinued the production of their "Sigmonster", the 300-800mm f/5.6 in 2019 (not the "Sigzilla", the 200-500mm f/2.8). I wonder in fact that they had it in production for that long time. I once had a chance to test a copy and was underwhelmed in particular by its lousy IQ, that wasn't up to the high resolution of modern sensors anymore. Hovering around such a heavy monster for mediocre results - I never understood that some people still bought this lens. So, sales may have dropped too much in the end.
Upvote
0
I agree, I think such a light and compact 70-300mm f/4 would be quite attractive. I still have an EF 70-200mm F/4.0 L IS USM (optically much better than the older non-IS version), sometimes I like to carry it with me during hikes, in particular for tele landscape shots.
Upvote
0
In fact, I never have seen a zooming tele converter, since this might need a flexible length - Canon's 1.4x TC is much shorter than the 2.0x TC. Not sure whether an internal zoom would be optically feasible, since most of the optical focusing "job" is done by the lens attached. So I guess it would be a real challenge to design such an extending TC with a good optical quality and enough mechanical ruggedness to survive longer at least with a heavy big white lens attached.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
Same here. I sent mine back to Sigma the IQ was so poor. They found nothing wrong with it.
Fine for video, up to 4K at a squeeze.
Upvote
0
But only on a very steady tripod with a massive head, because it lacked IS (OS in Sigma terms). My experience is that you do not need any active IS if you have a bigger lens and shoot stills images, because you have inertial "IS" simply by its mass. But things change dramatically when you shoot video, because even such a heavy tele lens starts to vibrate when the wind blows only a bit and produces turbulences in the lens hood. Then you really need active image stabilization or you have to remove the jittering when you post-process the video files.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
Maybe you should follow CRGuy’s example and get some sleep.
haha. soon it's midnight here now.
Upvote
0
My future lens (if ever produced!)
Obviously it's not like suddenly the website is a pile of trash, it's extremely far from that, but it is a change of direction, it's the fact that the contents are not impartial.
A 70-300mm f/4 L sounds to me like an evolution to the traditional 70-300 f/4-5.6. New? Yes. Revolutionary? Not at all.
Imho 400-600mm f/2.8-4 is a pretty short 1.5x zoom range, for a telephoto lens. The 300-600mm would be very nice, in comparison. Losing just one third of a stop while having extra 100mm on the "wide" end, I can see that being very useful for sports, for instance.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
