First off, this isn't a fully objective test (and I'm not sure you can create one without a very sizeable budget), but I found the data interesting enough to share and to hear if others had tested the lenses.
I shoot a lot of motorcycle racing, and with picking up the RF100-500 about a month ago, I was keen to practice using it on the R3 and seeing how it measures up against the EF 300/2.8 II and the EF200-400 as the two EF are in the 'Big (& Heavy) White' league, whereas the RF is in the 'Little White' league
The much smaller size and lower weight makes the RF100-500 potential choice. But how good is the auto-focus, compared to the Big Whites?
Two weekends ago, there the organization I ride with was organizing a 6-hour motorcycle Endurance Race, so instead of riding, I photo-geared up, headed to the track, got a 'tog vest and out I went shooting.
The main points for me in this "test" is to practice my panning game (yes, I still suck at it), get to learn the R3/RF100-500 combo, and see how good the lens+body AF system is at to locking onto the motorcyle (or helmet).
Background data:
R3 body, using FW v1.4.0. Shutter set to electronic, with either H+ or H mode. Auto-AF mode, BBF.
Vehicle detection enabled, eye-focus disabled. Panning assist disabled. Shooting RAW only (that was a mistake: shoot RAW+JPG-L).
Conditions was bright sunlight from a spotless sky - almost too much light. I used a C-POL filter (77mm or 52-m drop-in) to cut out 1-1.5 stop of light to keep the aperture to sensible levels (I have now purchased a 77mm 3-stop ND filter).
A bit of extra information showing the distribution over focal length, shutter speed, and f-number.
My own notes and comments:
1) Rating 5 was used for images that were tack-sharp in 100% - both for the bike and the riders' helmet. If either the helmet or bike (but not both) was sharp, I gave the image a Rating 4.
2) The poor data for the RF24-105 should be ignored in this case. I only used the RF-24-105 on the inside of a corner where the bikes were going significantly faster than the other corners, and due to the closeness, the angular velocity (ie: panning speed) was much higher, making it really hard to get a bike is tack-sharp focus. In that corner I was using ~100mm focal length, as the bikes were so close.
3) I shot mostly at two other corners, from the same position (outside to both corners). I could simply pivot and shoot bikes in either corner as I pleased. In one corner a 300mm FL was a good choice (distance: 25-30meters), and in the other I was using 400-500-560mm (distance 50 meters).
4) I tried using the 1.4x + 1.4x internal + external TC for the EF 200-400 for bikes coming over a crest some ~300 meters away and shooting at that distance is not worthwhile. The vehicle should be taking up a sizeable part of the image.
My own conclusions:
A) So if I just look at the keeper rate of the 'Rating 5' images, the two Big Whites get ~18% keepers, whereas the RF100-500 is at 8%. That's a much bigger difference than I had expected.
B) If you are using DPP (as I do), and need to sort through a lot of images quickly, my recommendation is to shoot in RAW+JPG(L). The reason is that DPP is dog slow at rendering a CR3 image - approx 6 seconds/image on my computer, whereas a JPG render is virtually instantaneous. So decouple the RAW+JPG in the menu, use the JPGs to rate and cull, and then go back to the CR3 for actual editing work. I used the exiftool to batch-copy the Rating field from the JPGs to the RAWs. Also, do not use DPP for deleting images (it's slow). Writing RAW+JPG in the camera is infinitely faster than asking DPP to create JPG's after-the-fact (15sec/image, in fact).
Hope this is useful for others. Anything missing? (exiftool can dig out impressive amounts of information from the EXIF data).
I shoot a lot of motorcycle racing, and with picking up the RF100-500 about a month ago, I was keen to practice using it on the R3 and seeing how it measures up against the EF 300/2.8 II and the EF200-400 as the two EF are in the 'Big (& Heavy) White' league, whereas the RF is in the 'Little White' league
The much smaller size and lower weight makes the RF100-500 potential choice. But how good is the auto-focus, compared to the Big Whites?Two weekends ago, there the organization I ride with was organizing a 6-hour motorcycle Endurance Race, so instead of riding, I photo-geared up, headed to the track, got a 'tog vest and out I went shooting.
The main points for me in this "test" is to practice my panning game (yes, I still suck at it), get to learn the R3/RF100-500 combo, and see how good the lens+body AF system is at to locking onto the motorcyle (or helmet).
Background data:
R3 body, using FW v1.4.0. Shutter set to electronic, with either H+ or H mode. Auto-AF mode, BBF.
Vehicle detection enabled, eye-focus disabled. Panning assist disabled. Shooting RAW only (that was a mistake: shoot RAW+JPG-L).
Conditions was bright sunlight from a spotless sky - almost too much light. I used a C-POL filter (77mm or 52-m drop-in) to cut out 1-1.5 stop of light to keep the aperture to sensible levels (I have now purchased a 77mm 3-stop ND filter).
| Lens | Shots | Rating 4 | Rating 5 | Keeper rate (4) | Keeper rate (5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM | 164 | 25 | 29 | 15.2% | 17.7% |
| Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x | 312 | 39 | 27 | 12.5% | 8.7% |
| Canon EF 300mm f/2,8L IS II USM | 148 | 20 | 26 | 13.5% | 17.6% |
| Canon EF200-400mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x III | 196 | 31 | 35 | 15.8% | 17.9% |
| Canon EF200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXT +1.4x III | 45 | 2 | 0 | 4.4% | 0.0% |
| Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM | 2008 | 211 | 165 | 10.5% | 8.2% |
| Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM | 689 | 58 | 22 | 8.4% | 3.2% |
A bit of extra information showing the distribution over focal length, shutter speed, and f-number.
| Shutter speed [sec] | Shots | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1/160 | 22 | 0.6% |
| 1/200 | 3190 | 89.9% |
| 1/250 | 338 | 9.5% |
| F-number | Shots | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 5.6 | 817 | 23.0% |
| 6.3 | 31 | 0.9% |
| 7.1 | 320 | 9.0% |
| 8 | 1859 | 52.4% |
| 9 | 274 | 7.7% |
| 11 | 249 | 7.0% |
| Focal length [mm] | Shots |
|---|---|
| 100-105 | 640 |
| 200 | 74 |
| 280 | 237 |
| 300 | 1070 |
| 400 | 267 |
| 420-428 | 200 |
| 500 | 662 |
| 560 | 157 |
| 784 | 45 |
My own notes and comments:
1) Rating 5 was used for images that were tack-sharp in 100% - both for the bike and the riders' helmet. If either the helmet or bike (but not both) was sharp, I gave the image a Rating 4.
2) The poor data for the RF24-105 should be ignored in this case. I only used the RF-24-105 on the inside of a corner where the bikes were going significantly faster than the other corners, and due to the closeness, the angular velocity (ie: panning speed) was much higher, making it really hard to get a bike is tack-sharp focus. In that corner I was using ~100mm focal length, as the bikes were so close.
3) I shot mostly at two other corners, from the same position (outside to both corners). I could simply pivot and shoot bikes in either corner as I pleased. In one corner a 300mm FL was a good choice (distance: 25-30meters), and in the other I was using 400-500-560mm (distance 50 meters).
4) I tried using the 1.4x + 1.4x internal + external TC for the EF 200-400 for bikes coming over a crest some ~300 meters away and shooting at that distance is not worthwhile. The vehicle should be taking up a sizeable part of the image.
My own conclusions:
A) So if I just look at the keeper rate of the 'Rating 5' images, the two Big Whites get ~18% keepers, whereas the RF100-500 is at 8%. That's a much bigger difference than I had expected.
B) If you are using DPP (as I do), and need to sort through a lot of images quickly, my recommendation is to shoot in RAW+JPG(L). The reason is that DPP is dog slow at rendering a CR3 image - approx 6 seconds/image on my computer, whereas a JPG render is virtually instantaneous. So decouple the RAW+JPG in the menu, use the JPGs to rate and cull, and then go back to the CR3 for actual editing work. I used the exiftool to batch-copy the Rating field from the JPGs to the RAWs. Also, do not use DPP for deleting images (it's slow). Writing RAW+JPG in the camera is infinitely faster than asking DPP to create JPG's after-the-fact (15sec/image, in fact).
Hope this is useful for others. Anything missing? (exiftool can dig out impressive amounts of information from the EXIF data).
