Which VERY long reach zoom for Canon FF? Cheap, average quality, size/weight not an issue..

If you consider a max budget of ~1000 $ or € as I said.. I realised it's exactly the cost of .. the Nikon Coolpix P1000, which gives not 600 or 800mm but 3000mm

Does it make sense as an alternative to what I am looking for?

I suspect the question .. and reply to it.. is how far I am from this mountain range..

So, distance I am trying to reach is ~10km from this mountain range..
Two photos to show you solely distance is not the only unknown in the equation.



The bigger object is around 13+ kilometers away.

cac84129ce8a4edea43ec5d3a94bdea2.jpg

This boat is around 4 kilometers away.



cd209c53697b4bc4957603f3998ce235.jpg
 
- - Sigma or Tamron 150-600 (might stretch budget to the new 60-600 as a more versatile lens)

initially did not consider as I thought I could find some 800mm 2nd hand

- - Canon 100-400 w. 2x extender

- - Mirror lens
Not that easy, if it's really the 3000mm end of the P1000 zoom you need.

To get the same pixels-on-subject with the 6D that you would get at "3000mm" on the P1000 (~545mm), you would need about 2780 real millimeters of focal length. "Real" can include TCs, but you need a lot of TCs to do that, and when you start adding too many of them, you get AF issues, even if you use the best quality ones, and stacking too many TCs can deteriorate communication and cause extra aberrations not present in the main lens .

The big pixels in your 6D can't do everything. Sometimes focal length isn't enough, and you need extremely high pixel density, if you want to see all of what is there, that is small and/or distant. The P1000 is designed to have IS suitable for that magnification, and uses a leaf shutter to prevent any jello effect of a swaying lens, even with a fast shutter speed.

I have a 6D, a 7D2, and multiple telephoto lenses, including the 400/4DO II which takes TCs very well, but I have been considering a P1000, because these DSLRs are never going to give extreme pixels-on-subject like the P1000 can at its long end (and they don't do 4K video, or any video at all through an EVF that I can hold solidly against my face, either).

The wide end of a zoom like the P1000 is going to have a lot more noise and diffraction than the 6D with normal focal length zooms, but the P1000 goes where the 6D can't reasonable go, and gives much better results than cropping the death out of the 6D with the longest focal length that you are likely to use with it.
 
...a used 100-400 L (mark I):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-EF-1...h=item5215a77de2:g:DTcAAOSw8BdcCFUg:rk:2:pf:0

with a 2x extender. You should be able to find one use for $200.
If that were the absolute only choice, I suppose. But I've used the mk I with a Canon 1.4x, and the results were disappointing enough that I only did it a couple times. I imagine IQ will not be good with 2x.
Define "IQ". If you get focus (may need to be manual), it can be better than the bare lens. I shot the 100-400 v1 with the 2xIII and manual focus for a year or two; I took pictures of small birds 100 feet away in the trees and could see the little dots around their eyes when I nailed focus (it was alittle sharper stopped down a little, though). The 6D can focus this combo in Live view, but pixels-on-subject with the 6D and 800mm falls far, far short of the P1000 at "3000mm".
 
There is no good way to get 800mm under $1000. Probably have to be satisfied with 600mm in a Sigma or Tamron.
You need a 1200mm (real mm) lens with a 2x and a 1.4x stacked with it to get the pixels-on-subject in a 6D that the P1000 gives at max optical zoom.
 
...a used 100-400 L (mark I):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-EF-1...h=item5215a77de2:g:DTcAAOSw8BdcCFUg:rk:2:pf:0

with a 2x extender. You should be able to find one use for $200.
If that were the absolute only choice, I suppose. But I've used the mk I with a Canon 1.4x, and the results were disappointing enough that I only did it a couple times. I imagine IQ will not be good with 2x.
There is no good way to get 800mm under $1000. Probably have to be satisfied with 600mm in a Sigma or Tamron.
Used S/T 150-600 + Kenko DGX 1.4x get you decent IQ at 800mm under 1K.
The DGX and 600/6.3 zooms are not compatible, AFAIK. They both do out-of-protocol Trix and interfere with each other. Kenko should have put a USB port in their new DGX series so the firmware could be updated, and have a switch to turn off the Trix.
 
Used S/T 150-600 + Kenko DGX 1.4x get you decent IQ at 800mm under 1K.
The DGX and 600/6.3 zooms are not compatible, AFAIK. They both do out-of-protocol Trix and interfere with each other. Kenko should have put a USB port in their new DGX series so the firmware could be updated, and have a switch to turn off the Trix.
Well, I have this combo and it works on 7D and 6D but there's an error message on 80D at 600(840)mm. Works even with M50.

I would be nice to have firmware update option though.
 
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- - Sigma or Tamron 150-600 (might stretch budget to the new 60-600 as a more versatile lens)

initially did not consider as I thought I could find some 800mm 2nd hand

- - Canon 100-400 w. 2x extender

- - Mirror lens
Not that easy, if it's really the 3000mm end of the P1000 zoom you need.

To get the same pixels-on-subject with the 6D that you would get at "3000mm" on the P1000 (~545mm), you would need about 2780 real millimeters of focal length. "Real" can include TCs, but you need a lot of TCs to do that, and when you start adding too many of them, you get AF issues, even if you use the best quality ones, and stacking too many TCs can deteriorate communication and cause extra aberrations not present in the main lens .

The big pixels in your 6D can't do everything. Sometimes focal length isn't enough, and you need extremely high pixel density, if you want to see all of what is there, that is small and/or distant. The P1000 is designed to have IS suitable for that magnification, and uses a leaf shutter to prevent any jello effect of a swaying lens, even with a fast shutter speed.

I have a 6D, a 7D2, and multiple telephoto lenses, including the 400/4DO II which takes TCs very well, but I have been considering a P1000, because these DSLRs are never going to give extreme pixels-on-subject like the P1000 can at its long end (and they don't do 4K video, or any video at all through an EVF that I can hold solidly against my face, either).

The wide end of a zoom like the P1000 is going to have a lot more noise and diffraction than the 6D with normal focal length zooms, but the P1000 goes where the 6D can't reasonable go, and gives much better results than cropping the death out of the 6D with the longest focal length that you are likely to use with it.
In terms of pure pixels on the subject, the P1000 sure gives more. But how good is the quality really. At "3000" the P1000 is f8. But when one takes diffraction into account, IQ does suffer substantially. Here are some calculations


At f8, a m4/3 gives around 8Mp (green wavelength). Calculation for a 1/2.3 sensor, I estimate you can get maybe around 1Mp. On FF at f8 you have a ~ 29Mp diffraction limit. Taking a 600mm lens (e.g. Tamron 150-600), the 600mm is a factor 5 "shorter", gives a factor of 25 (5x5) for area. 29Mp / 25 = 1.16 Mp (that's what you would have to crop down to). So, seems one gets around a similar resolution with both systems.

It would be nice to see direct shoot outs between such systems.
 
In terms of pure pixels on the subject, the P1000 sure gives more. But how good is the quality really.
Compared to what? There is no alternative that is practical with large 6D pixels, except a stack of TCs on a very long lens.

Much, much better than any 5.58x crop from a FF camera with a 545/8 lens; you really need to give the FF camera much, much more focal length to start seeing subject resolution approaching the P1000, or a larger entrance pupil to see major subject-normalized noise and diffraction benefits (and better background/subject isolation). People really need to stop this obsession with 100% pixel views. From any given distance, your subject is projected onto your sensor in an analog form (size in mm varying with focal length), which has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of the sensor or the size of the pixels. The sensor size determines the width of the field that you capture, and the pixel size determines how well you have sampled any item in that analog projection, and having larger pixels so that they appear cleaner and sharper at 100% pixel views is COMPLETELY COUNTERPRODUCTIVE to optimal imaging. What you are seeing in the P1000 at "3000mm" is like a 16.7MP crop from the center of a 519MP FF sensor, with a 545/8 lens. This is superior in just about every way to the same crop from a 20MP FF sensor, unless you are silly enough to compare 100% pixel views.
At "3000" the P1000 is f8. But when one takes diffraction into account, IQ does suffer substantially. Here are some calculations
The context-less, scale-less metric of PQ or pixel quality suffers from f-number : pixel spacing ratios. The SQ or subject quality suffers less diffraction than any FF version with an entrance pupil smaller than 68mm. You don't notice with the FF, because we pamper and baby big pixels to never show their weakness - the details that occur within the pixel boundaries are lost forever to the big pixels, so we hide how hollow the capture is by using low sensor area magnification when big pixels are used. It's like there is something akin to a speed limit for pixel viewing; most people think it unnecessary to ever view at higher than 100% in a comparison.
Michael Reichmann offered me to be one of the writers for Luminous Landscape about a decade ago. I didn't take him up on it, partly because I knew that my ideology would clash with much of what was already written at LL.
At f8, a m4/3 gives around 8Mp (green wavelength).
Diffraction does not cause a reduction in MP. It causes a reduction in contrast at high absolute (per mm) sensor frequencies, and the tail down to virtually unusable contrast is very, very long, and usually needs to be exposed by small pixels to avoid aliasing in the red and blue channels of a Bayer CFA.

Thinking too much about diffraction blur size vs pixel size has some usefulness, in reasonable comparisons, but too much thought is put into it which has no practical purpose.
Calculation for a 1/2.3 sensor, I estimate you can get maybe around 1Mp. On FF at f8 you have a ~ 29Mp diffraction limit. Taking a 600mm lens (e.g. Tamron 150-600), the 600mm is a factor 5 "shorter", gives a factor of 25 (5x5) for area. 29Mp / 25 = 1.16 Mp (that's what you would have to crop down to). So, seems one gets around a similar resolution with both systems.

It would be nice to see direct shoot outs between such systems.
Done correctly, with normalized subjects; not worthless normalized full images or original pixel views at 100%.

For focal-length-limited photography, there are some very simple rules that bypass all confusion. For any given distance from the subject, the size of the diffraction blur, the empirical DOF envelope, and the amount of photon noise on a size-normalized subject depends only on the distance (which is fixed), and the size of the entrance pupil. Those two can be combined, into one metric, for varying distance: the entrance pupil diameter in angular degrees, as seen from the subject's perspective (regardless of distance). If your other calculations and experiences contradict this, they are wrong or illusion!

Smaller pixels, all other subject-normalized things being equal, only make people prone to illusion declare failure, but are superior.

I believe that if aliens came to earth with a camera that had 100% quantum efficiency in all colors in all pixels, only photon noise, and a trillion pixels (and memory cards and computers capable of handling the large data sets), and showed a group of 100 of the most prominent photographers and photography bloggers 100% pixel views only, on a 100PPI monitor, they would vote for the aliens taking their unwanted technology back where it came from.
 
In simple words.. Top-end gear does NOT make up for lack of FOCAL RANGE

Most pics I see from the same mountain range .. Distant from ~10km

Some pics from simple Bridge cameras (smallish sensors) with very long focal ranges generate much crisper, detailed and overall nicer shots than guys with the latest toys (Full-Frame) costing 10x the 💵) but lacking in focal range..
 
In simple words.. Top-end gear does NOT make up for lack of FOCAL RANGE
Actually, it does. Small sensor cameras with, say, 800mm reach have the resolving ability of larger ones, say at 400mm.
 
In simple words.. Top-end gear does NOT make up for lack of FOCAL RANGE
Actually, it does. Small sensor cameras with, say, 800mm reach have the resolving ability of larger ones, say at 400mm.
Agree probably at these focal ranges in your example.. but interesting discussion nonetheless

Trying to illustrate that to a friend who always must have the latest gadget and thinks he knows best.. Has the new Sony full-frame as he was told it’s the one to have in 2018.. He was saying that with post-processing his sensor was so clean that he could with any of his lens outperform via his superior resolution a “crappy camera sensor with a very long focal zoom”

experiment did not go too well for the new Sony gadget.. Still waiting for these jpegs.. reprocessed ;)
 
In terms of pure pixels on the subject, the P1000 sure gives more. But how good is the quality really.
Compared to what? There is no alternative that is practical with large 6D pixels, except a stack of TCs on a very long lens.

Much, much better than any 5.58x crop from a FF camera with a 545/8 lens; you really need to give the FF camera much, much more focal length to start seeing subject resolution approaching the P1000, or a larger entrance pupil to see major subject-normalized noise and diffraction benefits (and better background/subject isolation). People really need to stop this obsession with 100% pixel views. From any given distance, your subject is projected onto your sensor in an analog form (size in mm varying with focal length), which has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of the sensor or the size of the pixels. The sensor size determines the width of the field that you capture, and the pixel size determines how well you have sampled any item in that analog projection, and having larger pixels so that they appear cleaner and sharper at 100% pixel views is COMPLETELY COUNTERPRODUCTIVE to optimal imaging. What you are seeing in the P1000 at "3000mm" is like a 16.7MP crop from the center of a 519MP FF sensor, with a 545/8 lens. This is superior in just about every way to the same crop from a 20MP FF sensor, unless you are silly enough to compare 100% pixel views.
At "3000" the P1000 is f8. But when one takes diffraction into account, IQ does suffer substantially. Here are some calculations
The context-less, scale-less metric of PQ or pixel quality suffers from f-number : pixel spacing ratios. The SQ or subject quality suffers less diffraction than any FF version with an entrance pupil smaller than 68mm. You don't notice with the FF, because we pamper and baby big pixels to never show their weakness - the details that occur within the pixel boundaries are lost forever to the big pixels, so we hide how hollow the capture is by using low sensor area magnification when big pixels are used. It's like there is something akin to a speed limit for pixel viewing; most people think it unnecessary to ever view at higher than 100% in a comparison.
Michael Reichmann offered me to be one of the writers for Luminous Landscape about a decade ago. I didn't take him up on it, partly because I knew that my ideology would clash with much of what was already written at LL.
At f8, a m4/3 gives around 8Mp (green wavelength).
Diffraction does not cause a reduction in MP. It causes a reduction in contrast at high absolute (per mm) sensor frequencies, and the tail down to virtually unusable contrast is very, very long, and usually needs to be exposed by small pixels to avoid aliasing in the red and blue channels of a Bayer CFA.
I agree it's not a sudden drop, and that it's a loss of contrast.

However, at some point diffraction does cause loss of resolution, that's why light microscopes have a limit of magnification (and electron microscopes are better because of the shorter wave length), and that's why pin-hole camera images are not that sharp (that's usually at ~ f/45). Also, all lens tests clearly show that when aperture is closed down that at some point resolution starts dropping.

In any case, the luminous landscape calculations do suggest that the difference between a P1000 and a FF with a 600mm lens may not be as large as the simple pixel size calculations might suggest. Hence also my suggestion that a proper comparison should be done, same subject at same magnification. Such a test would also then take into account quality of the lens. At this point, we don't know how good a P1000 lens at max focal length is compared to a say a Tamron zoom at 600mm
Thinking too much about diffraction blur size vs pixel size has some usefulness, in reasonable comparisons, but too much thought is put into it which has no practical purpose.
Calculation for a 1/2.3 sensor, I estimate you can get maybe around 1Mp. On FF at f8 you have a ~ 29Mp diffraction limit. Taking a 600mm lens (e.g. Tamron 150-600), the 600mm is a factor 5 "shorter", gives a factor of 25 (5x5) for area. 29Mp / 25 = 1.16 Mp (that's what you would have to crop down to). So, seems one gets around a similar resolution with both systems.

It would be nice to see direct shoot outs between such systems.
Done correctly, with normalized subjects; not worthless normalized full images or original pixel views at 100%.

For focal-length-limited photography, there are some very simple rules that bypass all confusion. For any given distance from the subject, the size of the diffraction blur, the empirical DOF envelope, and the amount of photon noise on a size-normalized subject depends only on the distance (which is fixed), and the size of the entrance pupil. Those two can be combined, into one metric, for varying distance: the entrance pupil diameter in angular degrees, as seen from the subject's perspective (regardless of distance). If your other calculations and experiences contradict this, they are wrong or illusion!

Smaller pixels, all other subject-normalized things being equal, only make people prone to illusion declare failure, but are superior.

I believe that if aliens came to earth with a camera that had 100% quantum efficiency in all colors in all pixels, only photon noise, and a trillion pixels (and memory cards and computers capable of handling the large data sets), and showed a group of 100 of the most prominent photographers and photography bloggers 100% pixel views only, on a 100PPI monitor, they would vote for the aliens taking their unwanted technology back where it came from.
--
*** Life is short, time to zoom in *** ©
 
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Hello, having recently jumped to my first FF (Canon 6D), I have re-discovered photography and enjoy it more than expected.. But budget is limited.

I live in front of a nice scenery in the form of a row of high mountain summits and enjoy each day the varied and constantly changing forms, colours, shadows, skies, clouds..

I have a 75-300mm of average quality but mostly the range is too limited.

For this primary use of photography at home, without the need for travel, which new or 2nd hand lens could you recommend here?

Criteria:
  • Focal range above 500mm.. if possible, why not 800mm or much more
  • Size not an issue
  • Weight not an issue
  • Budget max ~1000 $ or €
Thanks gents
Tamron or Sigma 150-600 mm
 
If you consider a max budget of ~1000 $ or € as I said.. I realised it's exactly the cost of .. the Nikon Coolpix P1000, which gives not 600 or 800mm but 3000mm

Does it make sense as an alternative to what I am looking for?

I suspect the question .. and reply to it.. is how far I am from this mountain range..

So, distance I am trying to reach is ~10km from this mountain range..
That camera is very good for static subjects

for highly dynamic and erratic ones you need a DSLR

--
Old Greenlander
"I show the world the way I see it"
40 years of photography and still learning
https://www.juzaphoto.com/me.php?l=en&p=88256
 
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Hello, having recently jumped to my first FF (Canon 6D), I have re-discovered photography and enjoy it more than expected.. But budget is limited.

I live in front of a nice scenery in the form of a row of high mountain summits and enjoy each day the varied and constantly changing forms, colours, shadows, skies, clouds..

I have a 75-300mm of average quality but mostly the range is too limited.

For this primary use of photography at home, without the need for travel, which new or 2nd hand lens could you recommend here?

Criteria:
  • Focal range above 500mm.. if possible, why not 800mm or much more
  • Size not an issue
  • Weight not an issue
  • Budget max ~1000 $ or €
Thanks gents
I've been using a Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary (with 5D Mark III and 80D) and highly recommend it. I would grab a copy at this current price:



9142874a46b7403eb499e0ae8e3d25b0.jpg.png



Try this focal range and build up practical experience before wanting "800mm or much more" :D . Also, a tripod will be helpful.

Have fun!
 
Hello, having recently jumped to my first FF (Canon 6D), I have re-discovered photography and enjoy it more than expected.. But budget is limited.

I live in front of a nice scenery in the form of a row of high mountain summits and enjoy each day the varied and constantly changing forms, colours, shadows, skies, clouds..

I have a 75-300mm of average quality but mostly the range is too limited.

For this primary use of photography at home, without the need for travel, which new or 2nd hand lens could you recommend here?

Criteria:
  • Focal range above 500mm.. if possible, why not 800mm or much more
  • Size not an issue
  • Weight not an issue
  • Budget max ~1000 $ or €
Thanks gents
Tamron or Sigma 150-600 mm
600mm on a 6D gives about 5% as many pixels-on-subject as the P1000 at "3000mm".

The OP needs to make clear whether he really needs the very long end of the P1000 or not. For 1/2.3" superzooms, ones that go to "600mm" or less generally only improve on larger sensors with 600mm zooms in size and weight, and can't do what they do optically, or sometimes AF-wise. At "3000mm", the P1000 is doing things to gather distant, small details with good sampling that no current large-sensor camera can do without a long lens and a long stack of TCs.
 
Thx John and others too

Very interesting replies

Let me compute them ;)
 
Having read all the foregoing after someone wanted the best for the least outlay, I reckon my answer to this problem might suffice.

Putting my 80D aside for a while, I bought a Nikon P900 instead of the vastly overrated, very heavy and one trick pony called the P1000).

This is a light, low priced (I paid just over £400 for it, new) fast, accurate, long reach camera which almost matches the P100 at 2000mm.

Show me a carriable, Canon setup which can match, for instance the shot below.

I doubt you will achieve this under many, many dollars or pounds sterling.

rat.



Taken, hand held March 27  mid afternoon 2018.  Background blacked for contrast.
Taken, hand held March 27 mid afternoon 2018. Background blacked for contrast.
 
Having read all the foregoing after someone wanted the best for the least outlay, I reckon my answer to this problem might suffice.

Putting my 80D aside for a while, I bought a Nikon P900 instead of the vastly overrated, very heavy and one trick pony called the P1000).

This is a light, low priced (I paid just over £400 for it, new) fast, accurate, long reach camera which almost matches the P100 at 2000mm.

Show me a carriable, Canon setup which can match, for instance the shot below.
Matching that would be hard but getting a better shot is easy. Just a random shot, I have seen much better.

44607260900_bef100c003_h.jpg


I doubt you will achieve this under many, many dollars or pounds sterling.

rat.

Taken, hand held March 27 mid afternoon 2018. Background blacked for contrast.
Taken, hand held March 27 mid afternoon 2018. Background blacked for contrast.
 
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Thank you for your pithy comment. Point well made.

As I said, a Canon 5D plus 50-500 adds up to a lot of moolah.

Ought to produce a reasonable result.

The man was asking how he could get the longest reach for the least outlay.

The answer, very simply is the Nikon P900.

As life time Canon user, I was a bit sceptical about taking the step to a different make,

but it turned out to be a very good move, once I'd learned the camera.

I am well aware it is only a one-lens bridge job, but for the money it is just unbeatable.

It is definitely a fun camera, as many people will no doubt agree.

The point is, that particular camera also performs extremely well at any length and its macro is unbelievably good in the right hands.

My advice is to do the best you can with whatever you've got and stop worrying about what you think might be better.

It probably won't be.

(Pixel counting might be some people's bag, but I bet if you went into a quality photographic gallery, you'd be hard put to find anyone doing it).

rat.
 

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