Anyone else notice the new Canon 600mm & 800mm lens designs?

Hi,

The Fuji system lacks long lenses, with the range ending at 400mm with the 100-400 zoom. This week Canon announced two that I thought were innovative. They were fixed aperture 600/11 and 800/11 lenses, and cost only USD $699 and 899$. My initial reaction was 'what the....', but the more I thought about it the more sense they make. A backpackable 600/11 that packs as small as a 300mm, weighs less than 1000g and costs $699? I'd be in...

They are very small, having fresnel optics and being collapsible ie telescopic. Obviously the proof of their worth is in the IQ and no-one yet knows how they perform, but freed from the design demands of faster apertures there's no reason they might not be very sharp. Fixed aperture? Nothing new - reflexes are inherently fixed, but I'd sooner have a refracting lens to avoid the dreaded reflex bokeh.

They are indeed slow. This will affect some use cases and not others. My occasional shots of birds, wildlife, aircraft, building details, distant peaks or the moon are all invariably daylight subjects. And I always find myself scratching for more DOF, not less with long lenses. I want the whole bird in focus, not just its eyes. Pro sports and pro wildlife photographers will buy their 600/4 leviathans anyway, but most of us can't afford them.

I think it would be great if Fuji made a similar product. If they ever offer a conventional fast 600mm that costs as much as the 200/2, I won't be able to afford it. A small light lens would get the sale...

Regards, Rod

I am confused by these lenses. With my 100-400 I almost always shoot close to wide open. I can think of only a few occasions where I had enough light for F11 and fast shutter speeds. I assume Canon knows what they are doing but I am not sure how these lenses could be used besides a few special situations. Maybe they are relying on their cameras being able to handle high ISO?

Rod, F11 at 400 and 600mm? You would have to be on a tripod with a completely still subject unless you shot ISO 50 million.

I wonder how the new Canon will do at ISO 57 bazillion?

I find the 100-400 (600) mm Fujinon to be an excellent lens. Easy to handle and get photos that are in focus even at its full extent. It weighs in at about 3lbs. The Canon 600 mm weighs in at about 2.5 lbs so just a half pound lighter than the Fujinon and therefore good for a day's handheld work. However the Fujinon is f5.6 at the max and the Canon is f11. I imagine that Canon is relying on the availability of bright EVFs for their lens. It would easily become too dark to use through an OVF.

It's great to see that improvements in optics have led to these lighter lenses. I have the Nikon 300 mm f 2.8. It is a beast at 7 lbs compared to the Fujinon yet half the focal length of the Fujinon at full extent. It is possible to use this lens for handheld shots but you quickly grow tired. Not good for a day's hike. I also own the Nikon 800 mm which you would never use for handheld shots because at 800 mm you absolutely need the stability of a tripod. The Canon 800mm lens would likewise still have to be mounted on a tripod to get good shots in focus. The main advantage of the lightness is that it would be more easily carried to where you are going to set it up.

It's interesting that the new Canon lenses are getting as much play and discussion in the non-Canon forums as with the Canon shooters. They're getting a lot of attention in the Nikon forums.

I have to hand it to Canon for finding a way to offer their customers long focal length at an affordable price. Because it's Canon and they've a well-earned rep for designing quality optics, I'm just going to assume these lenses will be sharp and aberration-free. They're fixed focal length and fixed aperture so, the optical engineers were able to design the elements to meet only one formula. I'd also guess the optics are entirely machine-figured.

That said, I have no interest in them. My long lens is a zoom reaching to 500mm, f/5.6. There are times I use it with a 1.4x TC at 700mm, f/8-11 but those are few and fast between. Canon's f/11 primes should work well in good, midday light for static or slow-moving subjects. But in low light or for fast action, they'll fall apart.

Still, 800mm reach for well under a kilobuck will be enticing to many bird and wildlife enthusiasts who shoot Canon. I understand a person having interest in these.

Hi again (everyone),

Greg I think you're over-stating the argument about f11. Just a wee whisker. In reasonable light, f11 is not a problem unless one is dealing with fast action. Right now, I deliberately choose f8 on my adapted 300/4L because f8 is it's best aperture for fine textural detail (like feathers).

F11 is almost as good - it doesn't lose much to diffraction, but it does cost me a stop in SS. I only shoot birds and other wildlife that are perching or nesting, maybe walking or swimming etc. BIFs are hard, and though they're very possible without AF, it's much harder and I usually just don't have the time to commit to trying it.

Yes, I'd mostly expect to be using a tripod with a 600mm or 800mm lens. Canon are saying their new pair do AF at f11 and they have OIS, but I've no idea how well it works on such long FLs.

I haven't bought the Fuji 100-400 because I don't need the short end. That's covered by other lenses. And the long end isn't much longer than my adapted set up. I'd like a larger step up that I don't have to re-mortgage my house to buy. Sure there's a good 1.4X TC, but it's not always enough.

Canon are not idiots. If these lenses were truly useless, they wouldn't have offered them. Sport and racing enthusiasts aren't going to buy them. They aren't that versatile. But there is a use case for some people. Mirror-less EVFs make them usable - they would indeed be useless with DSLR focusing screens. And what's the alternative? Long super zooms are at least twice the price and faster 600mm and 800mm primes are five times the price and five times the weight.

Here's a couple of images that were shot with my XT1, at f8 with an adapted MF Canon FD300/4L. (Posted before, but I knew where they were.) The honeyeater is cropped - a bird too small for a 300mm, but it's OK. I don't recall whether the pelican is cropped. The EXIF should show it. Plenty of detail in that one and decent backgrounds to both. I'm happy with the IQ, but an IS 600mm might have been easier.....

Just thinking out loud about what might work on my Fuji.

Cheers, Rod

They make perfect sense for many years now, when you can have great IQ shooting at ISO 3200 or 6400 in FF.

Say you shoot Canon's 600 f/5.6 wide open at ISO 400. With the new lens, you would be using ISO 1600, which is completely noise free.

Greg, you could at least do some simple calculations before posting such exagerations...

Rod McD said:

Hi again (everyone),

Greg I think you're over-stating the argument about f11. Just a wee whisker. In reasonable light, f11 is not a problem unless one is dealing with fast action. Right now, I deliberately choose f8 on my adapted 300/4L because f8 is it's best aperture for fine textural detail (like feathers).

F11 is almost as good - it doesn't lose much to diffraction, but it does cost me a stop in SS. I only shoot birds and other wildlife that are perching or nesting, maybe walking or swimming etc. BIFs are hard, and though they're very possible without AF, it's much harder and I usually just don't have the time to commit to trying it.

Yes, I'd mostly expect to be using a tripod with a 600mm or 800mm lens. Canon are saying their new pair do AF at f11 and they have OIS, but I've no idea how well it works on such long FLs.

I haven't bought the Fuji 100-400 because I don't need the short end. That's covered by other lenses. And the long end isn't much longer than my adapted set up. I'd like a larger step up that I don't have to re-mortgage my house to buy. Sure there's a good 1.4X TC, but it's not always enough.

Canon are not idiots. If these lenses were truly useless, they wouldn't have offered them. Sport and racing enthusiasts aren't going to buy them. They aren't that versatile. But there is a use case for some people. Mirror-less EVFs make them usable - they would indeed be useless with DSLR focusing screens. And what's the alternative? Long super zooms are at least twice the price and faster 600mm and 800mm primes are five times the price and five times the weight.

Here's a couple of images that were shot with my XT1, at f8 with an adapted MF Canon FD300/4L. (Posted before, but I knew where they were.) The honeyeater is cropped - a bird too small for a 300mm, but it's OK. I don't recall whether the pelican is cropped. The EXIF should show it. Plenty of detail in that one and decent backgrounds to both. I'm happy with the IQ, but an IS 600mm might have been easier.....

Just thinking out loud about what might work on my Fuji.

Cheers, Rod

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Rod, this is actually a very interesting thread and I was being a bit comically flippant last night about F11 and ISO bazillion at 400 and 600.

Yes , this move by Canon is of interest to Fuji because Fuji will make some longer prime and zoom glass, and they are either going to go all out with big and expensive fast primes or they could have two levels and do something like Canon is doing. It is very interesting.

I owned the 300 F4L. Man that was a lot of lens for an amazing price. And like you I shot it at F8 if I could because I'm not a fan of sliver of focus reach shots. But when stuff is moving at distance we have to start opening up or really jack ISO up.

Yes, with these lenses one could shoot at ISO 1600 and make it work at F11 in many situations, but 1600 is not free and higher ISO has a penalty. But it is a solid trade-off to get that kind of size/weight and price! And there are times where F11 will work very well at near base ISO.

Very interesting. And yes, I was kidding on the ISO bazillion.

Speaking of the 100-400. Great lens and actually amazing IQ and size/weight for that much zoom. But I wonder how many times people shoot that lens on the wider end?

I always said I wished it was a 200-400.

Anyway, this is interesting and to be honest, I didn't know Canon was doing it until this thread. That is unusual for me. I normally notice everything Canon does. And Sony. And Nikon. And Leica.

The 600mm seems like a great lens to do long isolation landscape shots such as a single tree on a cliff. The apertures are not ideal yet they are an interesting choice of something v noting as other lenses at these focal lengths are too heavy for the photographer to carry. Face it, a lot of hobbyist photographers are not young and strong and these lenses provide additional reach for them.

Morris

The San Antonio River is becoming a haven for bird watchers and bird photographers. The huge renovation made it much more natural and the habitat is increasing dramatically for birds. I even saw a Blue Heron the other day. I'm not a birder.

But two days ago I saw a pro BIF guy who had a fold up wagon with big rubber wheels.

The San Antonio river now has a paved walkway along it for 14 miles.

This old BIF guy was dragging that wagon along the paved walkway and it was full of big birding gear - 600mm, huge pro DSLR, huge tripod w gimbal and a big bag of gear. I bet he had 35 grand of gear in that wagon.

Dude was money shooting. I prefer the pure hobbyists because they will always stop and talk to you.

You know what was funny? I had the GFX 100 around my neck and a big tripod in my hand and was setting up to do a focus stack on the base of a palm trunk.

He says to me, which way is the Mission? I said which mission? He said, the one with the birds. I said, if you want birds, get in an Uber and go 2 miles South to the the San Pedro Creek confluence and set up there.

He said, is that what I think it is? I said yep. He said, I can't shoot with that for what I do. I said yep.

He says to me ... Can I hold it? I said sure.

Then he started telling me about shooting BIF at a high level.... Those guys are specialists. Because they are birders and very high-end shooters.

Actually, he told me that he sold the shots but was retired now and did it mostly for fun. Getting a great BIF shot of a bird of interest is a big get for those guys. They all know each other.

I saw those lenses and thought they were pretty interesting. I love the idea of making slower lenses and am happy to see Canon giving it a shot. It makes a lot of sense on some long telephoto primes. For "casual" hobbyists, even buying something like Fuji's 100-400 at $1700 is a pretty tough sell. But being able to get some great bird or wildlife shots for under a grand? That is pretty great. Not everyone needs to photograph BIF so for slow moving/stationary wildlife you can drop the shutter speed quite a bit to make up for the f11 aperture.

I know it is a specialty niche and probably wouldn't make market sense, but I'd love to see more f5.6/f8 lenses that trade light gathering capability for size/weight/cost (while still maintaining good resolution).

biza43 said:

They make perfect sense for many years now, when you can have great IQ shooting at ISO 3200 or 6400 in FF.

Say you shoot Canon's 600 f/5.6 wide open at ISO 400. With the new lens, you would be using ISO 1600, which is completely noise free.

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That's assuming you have opportunities to shoot f/5.6 at ISO 400. From my experience, things I shoot with a tele are often either in light that's not that great or demand a fast shutter speed.

The 600/11 is equivalent to the long end of the zoom in my Sony RX10 III (220/4 equivalent to 600/11). And I'm often around ISO 1600 with that (even as high as 6400, knowing the results will be find for small prints). So I'd expect to regularly be at 6400+ with an f/11 long tele.

It's a viable option if you want something small and/or cheap, but the compromises are obvious - they'll be good enough for some and not for others. In particular, I think they're a great option for the person who has other lenses that exploit the benefits of FF at more modest focal lengths and just occasionally need a long tele - maybe they would be better (or just as well) off with a smaller sensor and smaller lens, but this gives them a cheap, long tele for the camera they want to be using for everything else. And that's the whole point, I think - to take away the market's argument for a smaller sensor and get people to think "yeah, maybe FF really IS the way to go".

• Dennis
  --
  Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

Of course no single lens will be applicable to all typesof subjects. But with these new lenses, some people will be able to:

1. Carry a lighter 600mm and leave their 600 f5.6 at home.

2. Use 600mm and 800mm for the first time without mortgaging their house.

The following was shot at ISO 200, f5.6 and 200mm. 600mm f11 would have been quite feasible with high quality at ISO 800.



Of course if you shoot action you don'tuse f11.

--
www.paulobizarro.com

Rod McD said:

This week Canon announced two that I thought were innovative. They were fixed aperture 600/11 and 800/11 lenses, and cost only USD $699 and 899$.

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That's $699 and $899 more than I would pay for either of them. I rarely shoot during the day, and when I do, I never need a lens longer than about 135mm (in 35mm terms). I'm not in the target for those lenses, and neither are the vast majority of people.

Look, I love using primes. But let's be honest, modern zooms can be very good indeed optically, especially stopped down.

That means that the advantage of primes is either the faster aperture, or the size/weight advantage. Take the faster aperture out the equation, and it's all about size and weight.

If you just want to carry one focal length, slow primes can make sense on that basis alone.

Unfortunately, that only applies if you want one focal length. For example, the 100-400 f6.3 full frame lenses are similar in size and weight to the 600 f11, and with a 1.4x converter they'd give similar results. However, they'd also give you the option of focal lengths down to 100, so would be much more flexible when you want to try different framing. Add even one other focal length to your 600, and you're actually carrying more weight and bulk that with the zoom.

This is what killed off the 200 f2.8 lenses. They were lighter than 70-200 f2.8 zooms, but they weren't lighter if you also carried an 85 f2.8 and 135 f2.8.

No thanks, thats an Ez-Pass.

When I saw the press release for those two lenses I thought to myself, "Is it April 1?" Then I thought there had to be some catch that meant you weren't actually shooting at f11. Nope.

I have probably shot more than 40,000 images with 80-400 or 100-400 lenses and I don't think I have once dialed in f11. It just is totally unsuited for what and how I shoot.

VisuallyOriented said:

When I saw the press release for those two lenses I thought to myself, "Is it April 1?" Then I thought there had to be some catch that meant you weren't actually shooting at f11. Nope.

I have probably shot more than 40,000 images with 80-400 or 100-400 lenses and I don't think I have once dialed in f11. It just is totally unsuited for what and how I shoot.

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I also don't understand it but I guess we have to trust that Canon has done some market research.

Greg7579 said:

Greg7579 wrote:.

Speaking of the 100-400. Great lens and actually amazing IQ and size/weight for that much zoom. But I wonder how many times people shoot that lens on the wider end?

I always said I wished it was a 200-400.

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I do use the whole range most of the time, it's super useful. For dog sports and action. It's a really good lens for outdoor sports photography. Sometimes I wish it went even wider, say 70mm or so. But 100mm is fine.