Canon RF 600mm F11 real-world samples

What is the advantage of this lens over an adapted Sigma 150-600? Not intended to criticise this lens, just a genuine question. I feel the sigma may be more useful?

Is it wabbit season in Seattle?

No new 600 lens is going to beat the 400/5.6L cropped to 600mm. Especially when you consider it now has IS on the R5, actually is an L lens, and is $600 used.

This forum needs serious anger management!
I think the team did a pretty good job showing what these lenses can do.
I really appreciate that effort.

I decided quickly that this lens is not for me, that’s it!
So why not just move on instead of attacking Dpreview staff and Canon? This lens is simply not for you...

I'm not normally negative on these galleries, but these are really, really bad. If you had told me these were shot a smartphone, I would have believed it.

It's really surprising, specially since in the forums people have posted 600mm f/11 and 800mm f/11 shots that look really good.

The samples are discouraging. I expected to see optical results better than the EF 100-400 II with adapters.

I would have loved DPR to have posted this gallery with absolutely no camera or lens information (or any ability to pixel peep) and just asked readers what they thought was used. I wonder how many would have got the combo right?

OK - I give up, it has an advantage (same for its siblings): it is cheap.

Seriously, squirrel porn?

Need a 1000mm f/16 + 2x teleconveerter for my daily sun photography

Most of the people claiming that this lens is “unusable” are of course correct - it won’t fit their Sony cameras.

Well, given the cost of this lens vs. the results shown in the gallery, I wonder if a Sigma 150-600 Contemporary wouldn't do a better job?

THE ONLY SHOT in this gallery where you can really see what this lens can do is the Cat photo. The rest are destroyed by heat blur shooting way off distance stuff in the middle of the day. It’s like “what did you expect?”

Too bad the photo of the cat’s at ISO 3200 and not even very sharp.

Might be the worst sample gallery I’ve seen on DPR.

How to see the world through high ISO or thermal fluctuations. The 800mm should be even more entertaining!

The cat is beautiful.

I'm getting the vibe this is going to be a 'budget' lens that is going to need to be used by a fairly advanced user to really get the most from. I think if the average newbie got this or the 800mm, they would probably be very upset with their images (either ISO 12,000 mush or blurry/OOF shots).

How good is the recovery on the R6 and R5? Should people be shooting 2, 3 stops under-exposed and bringing back some brightness in post? Try to keep the ISO a bit lower/shutter a bit faster.

Its has some sort of "metallic taste" to it... same as when you put an extender on a good piece of glass.

//

It is hard to grasp why the photographer didn't change his flawed technique after numerous comments under his 800mm f/11 gallery. We see the same ultra-high ISO used and a lot of pictures where sharpness was destroyed by mid-day heatwaves. And none of the photos taken at ISO100 from a tripod in the morning at middle distances. It is thus nearly impossible to judge the lens itself from the presented images.

You know what's funny - the Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 (aka "200-800mm f/10-12.3") produces better results than this "mighty" Canon prime lens. LOL.

No susprise the level of snark is turned up to 11. The usual macho tech heads out in force with their virulent opinions.

Man, if you want us to appreciate what this 600mm Lens can do, please don’t post these tourist pictures that cannot be related to the use of a 600mm lens.

Long telephoto in small size and cheap. The penalty is small aperture, why do not they make it at least f/5.6? Joking.

Looking at the photos I prefer my Sony RX10Mk3. At least I get decent exposure values with f/4 or better maximum aperture through the whole zoom range. With f/11 trying to get short shutters speeds to stop birds in flight is futile, even in bright sunlight.

And please do not start with "equivalent" apertures, please. I am talking about simple shutter speeds.

Very interesting concept, and f:11 gives an affordable introduction to super telephoto lenses, but I had expected less softness and some more resolution and contrast for the samples where turbulent air is not an issue.

With the turbulent air scenes, a 6Mp camera would have been sufficient to record all detail, but for these pictures the limitation is not caused by the lens.

The main issue here is often the distance from the subject... in summer conditions : air turbulences are huge and a good sharpness is impossible, even with a 600f/4L lens !

Close subjects are sharp but in quite low light conditions, ISO values are too high !

So theses f/11 lenses have to be used in restricted conditions of light and suject distances, otherwise there are too much factors destructing sharpness : air turbulences, high iso, time values to avoid blur...
The fact is that the targeted customers for theses f/11 lenses may not consider all theses restrictions when buying them...

Otherwise, they are quite impressive !
I quickly tried the 800f/11 and it's a pleasure to use : lighweight, very easy to shoot with due to a very efficient stabilization, and sharpness is good when the conditions are OK !

I think we can forget the use of a X1.4 or X2 on these lenses...

who took these ? beginners ? a yacht image 1/1250 sec f22 iso 3200 couldn't stop laughing.

Ahh, Canon, if only you'd have released a 400mm f/5.6 DO...

Everything that I've seen from this duo (600mm & 800mm f/11) is the very definition of 'meh' - not terrible, but certainly not good either. They were quite interesting as rumors, and are extremely boring as real products... like most stuff that Canon puts out nowadays. I'll stick with my RX10M4, which makes better photos in a smaller and lighter package. It doesn't "overheat", either.

People shouldn't be surprised that an f/11 lens is not particularly sharp on a Canon R5 45MP. See:

https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/diffraction-limited-effective-resolutions/

An f/11 lens can resolve 16.15MP (Green 550nm) on a full-frame sensor. The Canon R5 needs at least an f/6.3 to resolve 45MP.

The beauty of this lens is the size and weight. I have this lens and use it with my R , probably the R6 would be a better body for it. Went on a backpacking trip with it, hiked over 100 miles , don’t think I would do that with any other 600mm lens . However I am sending it back as it just doesn’t excite me like I was hoping but I’m sure others will find it an interesting lens.

I think that f/11 is too much. I believe that light long telephoto lenses with 55mm and 75mm aperture diameter have a rights to exist, but maybe faster and shorter would be better. On ISO values like this - details are actually determined by noise. You can see it in this galery. Even first portrait of cat on 3200. There is a some resolution, but i really not a big fan to look at details through strong noise, and not a big fan of dirty textures - like a stock photographer I would downsize this to 8-12 megapixels . So you do not lose much, if you make a shot at on hypothetical 450 mm f/8 on one stop lower ISO and then crop to 600mm. And when 450 mm is enough you can get just better quality image. 600mm f/11 Just does not provide such opportunities. This also applies to 800/11- 600/8 would be better.

Maybe Canon should have gone f8.

This gallery is a disgrace. This is not a landscape lens, it's for shooting wildlife. Then you may expect shots made by an experienced wildlife photographer of distant subjects. Moving, flying, running, swimming animals shot by someone who knows what he's doing. Only then you get an idea of what this lens is capable of.

For instance look at image 7 and 8. These are at best record shots if the birds are rare. Only an idiot would place them in a gallery to show the quality of him/her self, the camera and/or the lens.

Just buy a freakin' P900.

These are probably a good deal for someone who wants amazing normal range and play with telefocus toy lenses on the side. Looking at this lens+body in isolation, you can get similar results by sticking a vintage lens from 1980 on a crop body from 2014 for a couple of hundred bucks. And way better results for still a lot less money with a 200mm F2.8 plus teleconverter on a recent generation crop body. Another piece of evidence that FF isn't a value in itself, you have to spend the money on top tier glass.

...meh....

This lens really quite appealed to me when announced. I like this odd sort of thing, there is something nicely old-fashioned (not zoom! interchangeable lens!) yet also brand new about it. These images don't discourage me, although they remind me how much more difficult it is to get decent images with long focal lengths. Good to see Canon innovating.

I find the close focusing distance of min. 4.5 meters very limiting. It should be about 2 meters to be useful for small birds, dragonflies and butterflies!

The gallery suggests a very narrow space between heat distortions and high ISO situations that gives excellent results from this lens.

Very good price for this lens! 👍👍

The samples I downloaded look considerably crisper than the ones I downloaded from the 800mm version. It would be interesting to see a same-subject comparison. I wonder if there would be much discernible difference if you cropped the 600mm images to the same coverage as the 800mm?

Seems even more dire than the 800

...is the squirrel picture NSFW? :-\
Looks a nice lens indeed.

At least you can see that even the Canon EOS R5 is quite grainy at 3200 ISO if you look at the Pictures at 100%, even in bright light.

I think this lens is being let down by fraidy cat sharpening; +25 may have worked fine for 10mp pictures and the primitive sharpening algo in early ACR, but sticking to anachronistic sharpening standards seems a little counterproductive.
It would be interesting to see what a professional-level Photoshop whiz could pull out of them.
Was a serious tripod used or were these shot handheld or on a monopod?