Canon is thinking about more lenses like the RF 600mm f/11 STM and RF 800mm f/11 STM

[Joules]

Doesn't the exposure triangle stay the same? By that I mean ISO, shutter speed, and f/stop? Cropping may well change the "bokeh", but doesn't change the aperture or the exposure. Other than that, I got nothing. As far as noise, I almost never go above ISO 400 anyway, though I am sure others go way beyond that. So maybe I'd be better off saying, "for me."

Well, I think that's a big part of the issue. f-number (not the same as actual aperture), shutter speed and ISO all affect the brightness of an image. So it is fair to think of them as some triangle where they all play an equal role in a sense.

But f-number and shutter speed control the amount of light that contributes to your exposure. ISO is different than the other two - it merely amplifies what the other two determine. Therefore, thinking about it as equally important as the other two can lead to confusion.

For example, people associate ISO with noise, when in reality, the noise in your image is almost entirely determined by f-number and shutter speed, or the signal in your image. ISO just needs to get higher when the others are to low to achieve the desired brightness. But it is not responsible for the noise. In fact, higher ISOs show less noise if you keep the other two settings identical and adjust the brightness in post to match between different ISO values.

So it doesn't really matter if you stay at or below ISO 400 all the time. If you push the brightnes of your image in post, that is the same or worse than shooting at a higher ISO.

And as cropping discards light from the edges of the frame, any noise in the image will become more apparent. Doing the crop in hardware through a TC and adjusting brightness via ISO or editing delivers a very, very similar image. So, the only difference between TC and crop comes down to resolution. You lose some quality due to extra glass in a TC. And you lose a bunch of pixels when cropping. Depending on the resolution of your sensor, one will be better than the other.

 

[davidcl0nel]

Canon is basically giving us a low end solution in the $600-$800 range or professional quality in the $9,000-$13,000 range.

I doubt this price for the big whities....
All RF lenses were more or less 1,5x of the EF original price (not street price), so I would say 15-18k each....

 

[Del Paso]

Collapsible tele lenses are certainly an interesting concept.
Yet, why limit it to "lower" quality, low aperture lenses?
I'd appreciate a super-compact RF 5,6/400 L or, even better, an RF 5,6/500 L, with extender compatibiliy (lens extended...).

 

[Maximilian]

Other lenses like those RF are surely welcome.
Funny that Canon left this "low cost super tele" market so long to third party manufacturers.

 

[Charlie_B]

I think Canon should go the other way, maybe a 200-600mm f4 . Not enough light available for me most of the year, I'm struggling with my 100- 500mm f4.5- f7.1 so don't use it just now

 

[dolina]

It would be smart of Canon to eat into the market of Rokinon, Samyang, Sigma, Tamron & Tokina if they want to grow or at least maintain yearly units shipped or revenue.

2020 is the worst year yet in a 10 year decline since 2010(?).

To be honest I wish never got into a buying spree from 2008.

Money and time I spent on photography would have been spent on MBA, wife and kids.

I would have never met those birding losers.

Edit: If anyone white knights I am referring to those in the Philippines.

 

[Canfan]

The image quality from an F11 lens in anything other than very bright light or perfect conditions isn't all that great, particularly on the R5. At f11 diffraction is already showing.
I know the high ISO capability to the R5 is better but a crop frame camera like the 90D or M6 MKII will give better image quality with a brighter lens.

Don't get me wrong these lens have their use but for birding or wildlife in forested areas or trails the use is quite limited. The weight is a huge plus for the f11 and reason why the heavy monster 800mm f5.6 doesn't get much use in comparison, if i buy this it would probably get limited use as well because of the f11.

I think 90% of photographers live between f4-f8.so canon should focus on that. Maybe the third party guys will force them to do that or come out with something more suitable to the masses. Social media influencer disguised paid ads and the youtube tend to overstate the utility of this lens, which I believe once the novelty wears off will sit somewhere in your home collecting dust.

 

[Joules]

The image quality from an F11 lens in anything other than very bright light or perfect conditions isn't all that great, particularly on the R5. At f11 diffraction is already showing.
I know the high ISO capability to the R5 is better but a crop frame camera like the 90D or M6 MKII will give better image quality with a brighter lens.

Don't get me wrong these lens have their use but for birding or wildlife in forested areas or trails the use is quite limited. The weight is a huge plus for the f11 and reason why the heavy monster 800mm f5.6 doesn't get much use in comparison, if i buy this it would probably get limited use as well because of the f11.

I think 90% of photographers live between f4-f8.so canon should focus on that. Maybe the third party guys will force them to do that or come out with something more suitable to the masses. Social media influencer disguised paid ads and the youtube tend to overstate the utility of this lens, which I believe once the novelty wears off will sit somewhere in your home collecting dust.

A 90D / M6 II with a 500 f/6.8 will produce the same image quality as the 800 mm f/11 on the R5. No such lens that I am aware of currently exits in EF mount. Plenty of lenses with 600 mm 6.3 on the long end exist and that is better in both reach and light - But comes at a price of weight and size. The EF 100-400 mm 4.5-5.6 L is also comparable, but much, much more expensive.

If you look just at the f/11 without factoring in the reach, you can't make an accurate judgement on the value provided by the 800 mm f/11. I don't believe the notion that that lens will end up collecting dust as long as it is used on FF bodies which match its price segment (RP, R6, ...). If you can afford an R5 and are serious about wildlife, there are of course much more suitable options out there and they will become more plentiful in the future - but the key here is the affordability.

 

[tapanit]

But 800mm f/11 is still f/11 when you crop it (not f/15.4). Not the same as adding a TC at all. Let's not get into "bokeh equivalency" arguments on this one. You don't lose any stops of light when you crop.

When you crop you lose light by the crop factor, or more precisely, by the censor area used - you are literally discarding all photons that fall outside it.

While f/11 remains f/11 regardless of the crop factor, saying that you don't lose "any stops of light" is misleading. "Stop" is not a useful measure for light when comparing different censor areas.

In terms of light gathering, as in how many photons are captured to make the picture, cropping has the same effect as TCs do (apart from the marginal difference in light transmission due to extra optical elements).

The difference is that TCs discard light at the exit pupil of the lens, spreading what remains to fill the censor, whereas cropping discards it at the censor, resulting in fewer pixels in the recorded image. Whether the loss of pixels is worse than the effect of the extra optical elements in the TC, depends on the quality of the TC and the lens and the censor, and even on the intended use of the image.

 

[Kit.]

But 800mm f/11 is still f/11 when you crop it (not f/15.4). Not the same as adding a TC at all.

The same. 800mm f/11 is still 800mm f/11, no matter if you crop it with a teleconverter or with a sensor.

Let's not get into "bokeh equivalency" arguments on this one. You don't lose any stops of light when you crop.

Actually, you lose all the light from the areas you discard when cropping. Again, no matter if you crop it with a teleconverter or with a sensor.

 

[scyrene]

I don´t think there is room for another 400mm lense since according the rumored the 100-400mm with F7.1 at the far end is coming. The difference from F7.1 to F8 would be too small.

If a 400 f/8 takes the place of the old 400 f/5.6, it wouldn't be overcrowding the lineup, imo. 400mm has always been over-represented. Presumably the prime would be smaller/cheaper than even the lower-end zoom.

As for the people here talking about a 500 f/5.6, that's clearly not part of this range - it would be substantially larger and more expensive. Not that it wouldn't be a compelling, maybe popular lens. But this is not the place for that, let alone talking about EOS-M and general wish lists. People always love to shoe-horn in their pet desires whether or not it's relevant to the topic at hand.

 

[slclick]

The segue from the EF 400 5.6L Unicorn version ll to a rumored RF 400 is complete. Let the 117 pages of RF 400 glass commence!

 

[Ozarker]

The same. 800mm f/11 is still 800mm f/11, no matter if you crop it with a teleconverter or with a sensor.


Actually, you lose all the light from the areas you discard when cropping. Again, no matter if you crop it with a teleconverter or with a sensor.

Well, not exactly true. With a TC the exposure triangle changes. Cropping, either by sensor size or in post, doesn't change the triangle at all. A TC adds more glass elements to the mix and less light gets through to the sensor. So yeah, an f/11 lens is still an f/11 lens, but when in combo with a TC... the f/stop is different for the combo than the primary lens by itself. When I crop an image, I don't lose light on my subject. I do with a TC. That's the difference. Using a TC and cropping are not the same thing.

 

[Joules]

Using a TC and cropping are not the same thing.

No, but they produce virtually the same image quality if the resolution you get after cropping is sufficient for your display / print size.

If image quality is the primary criterion for what is considered equivalent, cropping and TC are just two sides of the same coin. In other words, if by just looking at the image instead of the exif or processing steps, you can't tell the difference between a cropped and a TC shot, we call them equivalent.

 

[Ozarker]

No, but they produce virtually the same image quality if the resolution you get after cropping is sufficient for your display / print size.

If image quality is the primary criterion for what is considered equivalent, cropping and TC are just two sides of the same coin. In other words, if by just looking at the image instead of the exif or processing steps, you can't tell the difference between a cropped and a TC shot, we call them equivalent.

Actually, "equivalence" is exactly the argument I was avoiding in my OP. The original point was about losing or not losing light when cropping vs TC. F/11 vs f/16. How we think the final image looks is irrelevant to the argument. Would you rather take an image at f/11 and crop it? Or take the same image with a TC f/16 and no crop? I'll take the f/11 with a crop. Something tells me defraction at f/16 would make the image worse anyway. Not to mention the IQ hit a TC already gives on its own. Now, f/4 vs f/5.6 is a different situation, right?

 

[Michael Clark]

What about thinking about EF-M customers. Or is that line dead now with no mention of anything for months

The EOS M system is not marketed for those interested in large lenses. It is aimed at people who want a compact, lightweight, and affordable camera with compact, lightweight, and affordable lenses. None of these lenses would be 61mm in diameter, which every current lens is.

 

[Michael Clark]

Pretty much dead. No lens for over a year and one firmware update in form of M50 Mark 2

Not dead, just mature for its intended market. If you want lenses larger than 62mm in diameter, then EOS M is not intended for you.

 

[degos]

But it is not responsible for the noise. In fact, higher ISOs show less noise if you keep the other two settings identical and adjust the brightness in post to match between different ISO values.

You can't really say that as a rule because each camera has different ISO amplification quirks. Sometimes the hardware amp in the camera is better / lower noise than trying the same amplification in post-proc software for a given ISO. Consider that the manufacturer can tune the amp for given ISO equivalent values for a specific sensor, whereas software is generic and sensor-agnostic.

Shutter and aperture don't introduce any noise. How can they? They are purely mechanical functions. Noise arises from quantum and thermal effects in the sensor plus downstream processing.

 

[Joules]

Actually, "equivalence" is exactly the argument I was avoiding in my OP. The original point was about losing or not losing light when cropping vs TC. F/11 vs f/16. How we think the final image looks is irrelevant to the argument. Would you rather take an image at f/11 and crop it? Or take the same image with a TC f/16 and no crop? I'll take the f/11 with a crop. Something tells me defraction at f/16 would make the image worse anyway.

Losing light is maybe a problematic way to phrase the issue. Let's say it this way: A TC spreads out light from a center section of the lens image circle over the whole image. And cropping discards all the light but that coming from this center section. So in the end, both methods yield the same amount of light. Now, the TC image will be darker, since brightness is a function of light density - hence the need to boost ISO / brightness in post. As I understand, that's why you argue that the exposure is not the same. Which I agree with - but it does not matter to me, since I care about the image more than the settings.

I'll put something with pictures togehter later, hopefully. That may make things clearer.

I also would prefer to use cropping over a TC but not for IQ reasons. I simply don't want to spend more money and carry more weight due to a TC - especially as you are right that diffraction limits how much detail there is to be gained using a TC anyway (I'm using a 150-600mm 5.0-6.3 C primarily).

 

[Michael Clark]

They sure are capable of coming up with these obscure lens designs but was never able to update the EF 50. Our friendly neighborhood photography writers/journalists/posters have never even bothered to ask this question to Canon in a meaningful way much less get any meaningful answers. I haven't seen this topic questioned by any photo site in many years and the EF 1.4 50 was already 20-year-old design, still selling at 350.00 to this day.

And there is no non-L 50mmR on the roadmap besides the cheapo. Just RIDICULOUS. I will bet that they don't have confidence that non-L 50mm 1.4 wouldn't bury the lavish L version in sales. I mean there's got to be some decent explanation of this scenario that's carrying itself over into mirrorless.

From f/1.8 up, there's very little optical performance difference between the EF 50mm f/1.4 and the EF 50mm f/ 2.8 STM. Why would they replicate both in the RF mount?