Further clarification of what will be announced by Canon next month

H. Jones

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I still can’t believe the F/11 teles. It is so disappointing that this is what canon is giving us amateur wildlife photographers who want something in the 600mm to 800mm range, but don’t/can’t pony up $13k for a new 600mm f/4 or 800 f/5.6. F/11, are you kidding me? I guess if you want to shoot between 1030-11:15 AM, great.

I don't get why people talk about these things as if they limit Canon from doing anything else. There have been perpetual rumors of Canon releasing a 200-500 F/5.6, and I fully expect that they'll complete their line-up with something similar sometime soon.

For all we know, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised, these lenses could literally be about $600 bucks. These are much more on tier with a 100-300 f/5.6 STM lens than they are even the 100-400mm f/5.6, and I see that as a far more exciting thing for people who can't even consider a $2000 lens, nevertheless the $12,000 lenses.

It's literally just like a brand-name mirror lens, except with good autofocus and image stabilization. Mirror lenses never stopped anyone from making a 200-500 F/5.6, or anything of the like. Same as the 400 f/2.8 didn't stop Canon from releasing a 400 F/4 and a 400 F/5.6. Canon has obviously made huge strides to fill out their high-end workhorse lenses, and this is their wave of consumer lenses.

I look forward to using my 100-400 F/4.5-5.6L IS II and 1.4x extender on the R5 in its 1.6 crop mode at around 18 megapixels(if it is 45mp) to get even more reach than I get right now on my 1DX2, and that in itself is exciting.
 
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Not even in Florida? I usually try and get down there sometime during the dry season and that was one place I though you might get away with f11. I agree those lenses are going to be a challenge unless you are very comfortable with high ISO’s.
Well I was focusing on hummingbirds and they are most active early and late, at this time of year you are lucky to see a gopher tortoise or basking alligator during the heat of the day.
 
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This announcement is only for RF based products. Seeing as Canon is announcing all of this at once, there's a good chance they'll have an announcement later this year for the EF-M based products as well (rumored M5 Mark II, M50 Mark II, rumored lenses, etc).
Sure hope so - I feel decidedly ignored and left-out by Canon at the moment - we (those that embraced the EF-M format and gave Canon the No1 slot in Japananese mirrorless camera sales in the M50) are not all future would-be RF adopters. Clearly NOT EVERYONE is going to drop their EF-M kit and rush to buy the R bodies and their ridiculously heavy and expensive RF lenses.... Please don't ignore us Canon - Sigma saved your skin (with the launch of their beautiful trio of f/1.4 lenses) but Sony is waiting round the corner with open opens for would-be Canon refugees.
 
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usern4cr

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Those primes are not a problem and will be great for amateurs and young people who want to get into wildlife photography for cheap.
I hope they will release a 200-600 type of lens in the future with 5.6 aperture.

In the meantime you have the R5 and 100-500 which cropped 1.2X can get you a 100-600 lens at 30MP.
Out of curiosity, how much do you think a RF 200-600 f/?-5.6 L IS would weigh? The max aperture would be 107mm, but the outer lens might have to be more than that to illuminate the corners of the frame without too much vignetting. Any idea how wide the filter thread would be for it? I think I might really want to get one of them if they came out with it, even if the weight and price would have scared me off before (maybe old age is making me reckless!) :ROFLMAO:
 
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Eclipsed

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I still can’t believe the F/11 teles. It is so disappointing that this is what canon is giving us amateur wildlife photographers who want something in the 600mm to 800mm range, but don’t/can’t pony up $13k for a new 600mm f/4 or 800 f/5.6. F/11, are you kidding me? I guess if you want to shoot between 1030-11:15 AM, great.
1. I wouldn’t assume these will be the only offerings.
2. EF lenses on an adapter offer many choices Don’t forget the great values in used lenses for cheap speed.
 
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bbasiaga

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Nov 15, 2011
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I don't get why people talk about these things as if they limit Canon from doing anything else. There have been perpetual rumors of Canon releasing a 200-500 F/5.6, and I fully expect that they'll complete their line-up with something similar sometime soon.

For all we know, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised, these lenses could literally be about $600 bucks. These are much more on tier with a 100-300 f/5.6 STM lens than they are even the 100-400mm f/5.6, and I see that as a far more exciting thing for people who can't even consider a $2000 lens, nevertheless the $12,000 lenses.

It's literally just like a brand-name mirror lens, except with good autofocus and image stabilization. Mirror lenses never stopped anyone from making a 200-500 F/5.6, or anything of the like. Same as the 400 f/2.8 didn't stop Canon from releasing a 400 F/4 and a 400 F/5.6. Canon has obviously made huge strides to fill out their high-end workhorse lenses, and this is their wave of consumer lenses.

I look forward to using my 100-400 F/4.5-5.6L IS II and 1.4x extender on the R5 in its 1.6 crop mode at around 18 megapixels(if it is 45mp) to get even more reach than I get right now on my 1DX2, and that in itself is exciting.

They gotta have something to complain about. Everyone wants 200-400 w/ 1.4TC F4 performance, but few want to pay the price. They want good high iso performance, which we have in spades for the last several years, but then don't want to use it on a slower lens.

I remain optimistic about these lenses in the new mirrorless system. They built this lens with a use case in mind. We'll learn more about what that is when they release it. Maybe it will be for me, maybe it wont. Or maybe for many, or maybe just a few. We'll see.

Also, is this confirmed as a mirror lens? I thought the patents I saw were not mirrored lenses. Of course, that doesn't mean this lens matches those patents posted here before.

-Brian
 
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Sep 17, 2014
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Out of curiosity, how much do you think a RF 200-600 f/?-5.6 L IS would weigh? The max aperture would be 107mm, but the outer lens might have to be more than that to illuminate the corners of the frame without too much vignetting. Any idea how wide the filter thread would be for it? I think I might really want to get one of them if they came out with it, even if the weight and price would have scared me off before (maybe old age is making me reckless!) :ROFLMAO:

Probably around 2kg like the Sony one, which is an excellent lens. Sharp and its even an internal zoom
 
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bbasiaga

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Nov 15, 2011
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Out of curiosity, how much do you think a RF 200-600 f/?-5.6 L IS would weigh? The max aperture would be 107mm, but the outer lens might have to be more than that to illuminate the corners of the frame without too much vignetting. Any idea how wide the filter thread would be for it? I think I might really want to get one of them if they came out with it, even if the weight and price would have scared me off before (maybe old age is making me reckless!) :ROFLMAO:

the 200-400 F4 w/ TC is 3.6kg, or about 8lbs. Hard to guess the effects of going down a stop, and removing the TC. But I'd think half would be the best possible.

-Brian
 
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usern4cr

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They gotta have something to complain about. Everyone wants 200-400 w/ 1.4TC F4 performance, but few want to pay the price. They want good high iso performance, which we have in spades for the last several years, but then don't want to use it on a slower lens.

I remain optimistic about these lenses in the new mirrorless system. They built this lens with a use case in mind. We'll learn more about what that is when they release it. Maybe it will be for me, maybe it wont. Or maybe for many, or maybe just a few. We'll see.

Also, is this confirmed as a mirror lens? I thought the patents I saw were not mirrored lenses. Of course, that doesn't mean this lens matches those patents posted here before.

-Brian
No, it's not a mirror. The patent makes that pretty clear. In fact, in the patent there's really very few lenses in it and the last 40% or so (near the mount) has no lenses at all. But then again, the patent doesn't show any IS elements, so it has to be somewhat different than the patent shows.
 
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usern4cr

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I like how someone on Facebook just commented about the release, asking why Canon does not innovate and make a "lightweight" 600mm F2 or 800mm 2.8 instead
The only thing "lightweight" about a 600mm F2 or 800mm f2.8 will be your wallet and bank account afterwards! :ROFLMAO::cry::LOL:
 
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I like how someone on Facebook just commented about the release, asking why Canon does not innovate and make a "lightweight" 600mm F2 or 800mm 2.8 instead

Non-L and under $1,000 too. I’d buy that.

All you’d have to do is make it 800mm equivalent, auto-crop the sensor to 1/8th and you have a nice 50mm diameter barrel. Easy-peasy. Where’s the innovation?

0.4 megapixels on the RP - but you have to expect some compromise.
 
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I hope they are compatible just because someone will think it's useful and doesn't mind shooting at f/16 and f/22. LOL jk

I personally can't wait to hear why on earth Canon spent R&D money to develop a lens like this. I can't wait to hear their explanation on who or what it's for. I'm personally hoping the lenses have some hidden feature we don't know about yet like a built-in speedbooster (reverse teleconverter) or something like that. Like it's an 800 f/11 on the long end, but with the flip of a switch like they have with the 200-400, it becomes a 400mm 5.6 and 580mm f/8? I don't even know if that's something that's possible...but I also know that I am certainly not the target market for an 800mm f/11. An f/11 aperture just doesn't make any sense to me...it will be the king of diffraction on the RF mount. haha
Agree entirely, F11 is a joke, how much use can anyone get out of it unless they are happy with iso 25,000 most of the time ? Some might be happy with it, not for me though
 
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This is probably more similar to how the R5 and R6 will perform (in electronic shutter mode at least, mechanical is 12fps instead of 20fps), unfortunately there is no comparison video on flying birds, but the Animal AF should provide a considerable improvement.

Do you mean to say that the R5 is getting the 1DX III live view AF system? If that is the case, I'll be pretty happy. Reviews have been great for it. I'm just assuming (from being trained by Canon for two decades) that the 5 series is going to get something less.
 
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This is probably more similar to how the R5 and R6 will perform (in electronic shutter mode at least, mechanical is 12fps instead of 20fps), unfortunately there is no comparison video on flying birds, but the Animal AF should provide a considerable improvement.
I’m hoping it’s better. The Sony seems to still have a better AF.
 
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Thanks for keeping us up-to-date.

If you hear of anything regarding a software neutral density feature in the R5(6) it'd be good to hear about it. I really hope that they add this (a lot of other cameras have added it already) or else add it in a firmware update.

===

There really is no "Software Neutral Density Filter" as that is just a simple LUMINANCE REDUCTION FILTER applied on every RGB/YCbCr pixel. What IS coming from Canon within two to three years however, is FAST-SWITCHING electrochromic glass that will be put in front of the sensor which will serve as a proper solid-form image sensor protection and anti-dust plate AND will also function as a 256-level (i.e. 0-to-255 levels) TRULY VARIABLE neutral density filter.

The SAME TYPE of technology used in the windows of the USA's B2 Bomber as nuclear flash protection is now coming to sunglasses, house and commercial windows AND camera and smartphone lenses!

High-contrast and fast electrochromic switching enabled by plasmonics

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10479

Smart Glass Technology overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass


The fastest electrochromic glass I know of has a 100 microsecond switch time (i.e. 1/10,000th of a second) from fully transparent to pure white fully opaque. They can change the chromism to switch to FULL black instead of solid white by varying the orientation AND chemical nature of the microstructures that change orientation and/or actual translucency based upon applied electrical current levels.

And based upon the AMOUNT of continuously applied current you can set the AMOUNT OF TRANSPARENCY as the microstructures twist in orientation only partially blocking light at specific current levels. This makes a TRULY VARIABLE neutral density filter possible AND at 1/10,000th of a second, it also makes an INCREDIBLY FAST GLOBAL SHUTTER which bodes very well for sports, action and wildlife stills and video photography.

Unfortunately, the COST has been prohibitive so far but with the recent advances in microstructure replication technology using a combination of pulsed lasers and microwaves, such a FAST-SWITCHING 256 level combined neutral density filter and electronic global shutter filter assemblies will come down to around $100 in actual manufacturing cost, so about $150 to $200 US in retail cost will added onto your camera. I have no problem with that sort of added-cost if it gives me a 1/10,000th of a second global shutter AND a 256 level ND filter! This plate is simply put in front of the image sensor itself which means it gives you ADDED dust and water protection!

What's not to like about that?!

V
 
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