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An excellent lens for the price!

Started Aug 19, 2020 | User reviews thread
Wildlife Guy
Wildlife Guy Senior Member • Posts: 1,956
Re: An excellent lens for the price!

Nikon33 wrote:

For some background, I currently own the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS III lens, and have owned the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS lens, so I am no stranger to long lenses.

I will admit that I purchased this lens just for the novelty of trying it out, and I wasn't sure if I would like it. I took it to the lake on the new R5 to take pictures of birds. To my surprise, the 800mm f/11 is extremely sharp, and f/11 is not so big of an issue. Eye-af indeed does work. I was even able to track flying barn swallows and kingfishers with this lens! I will dock the 1/2 star for the fact that autofocus is not covered across the whole range. 95% of the time I lost focus was because the eye/face of the bird fell outside my frame, and the camera decided to focus on the breast of the bird or a wing instead, leading to those slightly out of focus pictures I hate so much. However, at $899, this lens is a very good bargain, and I will deal with that one shortcoming happily!

I bought the lens and agree with you on most points. The lens is a lot of fun to shoot and provides great price, handling, weight, IS, and IQ. I was shooting on my R5 and had absolutely no issues with the operation/performance of this  of the lens. As long as you recognize the 1 downside (f11) of this lens, it is a very good lens option that will open up a new shooting experience for a lot of photographers. I do have the following observations:

  • People will not like the results if they use the full auto function of the camera with this liens.  Auto will push the shutter speed to low / ISO too high producing images with motion blur or high noise.
  • This lens will be most effective for someone who understands the two variables they can control to maximize performance - shutter speed and ISO.
  • I believe the lens will be challenged by early dawn / late dusk lighting conditions.
  • Strong backlight, sidelight or busy backgrounds can create some strange bokeh (think fence in the background).  I think this may be a carryover of DO optics.  

I took the lens to the Atlanta Zoo on a sunny day 9am-noon. The zoo has a mix of open/heavily shaded areas (primate area is heavily shaded). I decided that I would keep shutter speed to a range of 320-640 w/Auto ISO (set to -1). I took 302 shots and 70% were captured at ISO 6400-12800. I could probably have pushed this down to 40-50% by being more exact with shutter speed, but I have been burned with animal movement in the past. While the R5 has great High ISO performance and most shots were still usable, that is starting to push the bounds when you consider it was in strong daylight w/shaded conditions.

I am going to take another trip to the Zoo next week for more tests. I already have the RF 1.4x TC and should receive the 100-500 by the end of August. Even though the 100-500 + 1.4x pushes 700mm, I may keep the 800mm and use when conditions are appropriate.

I definitely agree this lens can deliver for a great price, but it will take a bit of skill - which you obviously possess.

David

 Wildlife Guy's gear list:Wildlife Guy's gear list
Canon EOS R6 Mark II Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM Canon RF 24-105mm F4.0-7.1 IS STM Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM +4 more
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