Canon RF 200-500mm f/4L IS USM confirmed, likely in Q4 [CR3]

[SwissFrank]

For a zoom, I think the 1x and 2x options cover the greatest range, and then the 1.4x is the irrelevant. The 1.4x might have better IQ than the 2x, but the extra reach makes it more worthwhile for me.

Everyone's needs will differ. To me there was a lot of difference between 1.4x and 2.0x, with my EF70-200/2.8's and the 600/4. One big thing is that a 1.0x/1.4x/2.0x would need, at the 1.0x end, either to back the lens all the way into its normal position, which I think would be mechanically impossible, or, make 1.0x involve some optic elements which must have SOME kind of impact on image quality.

A third idea option may be weird but: what if they made a 1/1.4/2x TC that was an EF-RF adapter, and released new telephotos in EF mount!!?? Then the 1.0x position would not need any extra glass, and there'd be room for the mechanical complexities of moving the TC elements in and out. Mechanically and optically it'd be great. This TC adapter would work probably all EF glass. And you could add a few extra contacts to these new EF's that let them have the full bandwidth to the camera of the RF electrical contacts.

 

[SwissFrank]

Close focus or macro type photography is not what the large white lenses are ever designed for. They are designed to collect lots of light for distant subjects.

For a big telephoto, "close" might mean 4m or something, and it wouldn't necessarily be for macro but for shooting smaller birds I suppose.

 

[Del Paso]

Time for me to finally get a child to be sold for this.

Only one ?

 

[Marximusprime]

For a big telephoto, "close" might mean 4m or something, and it wouldn't necessarily be for macro but for shooting smaller birds I suppose.

The RF 800 5.6 actually has a super impressive MFD of 8.5 feet, which is pretty surprising, since my EF 500 II is about 12 feet. The 600 III is closer to 14, though.

 

[PhotoGenerous]

I'm assuming this means they will offer a defeatable external TC. So it would be a normal bayonet mount with a 1.4 or 2.0x that can be turned off. Or maybe even a TC that can go from 0x to 1.4x to 2.0x. Not sure how I would feel about that, but it would be a stop gap for the next 8-10 years that the super telephotos get refreshed on.

If they made teleconverters like that, I might actually use one.

 

[unfocused]

Hi Tony,

I think every sports photog will want the 100-300 AND the 200-500. That must be 20,000 photogs in the world right there. Sports is a big buck business and I imagine there are deep-enough pockets for it...

I'm curious how you estimated 20,000 top-tier sports photographers and how you are calculating the "deep-enough" pockets.

 

[unfocused]

Time for me to finally get a child to be sold for this.

The market value of children is very hard to calculate. Those who don't have one are willing to pay top dollar. But anyone who has two or more will happily sell them at a deep discount, especially if they have reached junior high school age.

 

[SwissFrank]

I'm curious how you estimated 20,000 top-tier sports photographers and how you are calculating the "deep-enough" pockets.

Thinking of a metro area with 3M people and at least 20 sports photogs, suggests one sports photog per 150k people. A first/second world of 3 billion would be 20,000. World sports revenue is $500 billion/year, and lenses last say 10 years so $5 trillion. 20,000 $10k lenses is $200 million. So that's 1/2 of 1% of 1% of revenue, and that's assuming the lenses are worth nothing at the end.

Canon's sold 150 million lenses as of a year or two ago. Averaged over 50 years, that'd be 3 million a year. Assuming sales are 90% lower than that average (which is way too pessimistic, as I hear they're really "only" 90% down from the peak) they're selling 300,000 lenses/year even now. So if 1% of the lenses they sell are these lenses, they'd sell my estimated 20,000 in the space of 6 years.

Really though, I just can't get to sleep and am being social on social media. It's not a dissertation or anything.

 

[sanj]

Nice lens. However, I will have to give the price, weight and IQ a good hard look before thinking of replacing it with my current 100-500 rf. If the new lens costs close to the 400 f2.8, I will prefer to buy the 400 and keep my 100-500.

 

[unfocused]

Thinking of a metro area with 3M people and at least 20 sports photogs, suggests one sports photog per 150k people. A first/second world of 3 billion would be 20,000. World sports revenue is $500 billion/year, and lenses last say 10 years so $5 trillion. 20,000 $10k lenses is $200 million. So that's 1/2 of 1% of 1% of revenue, and that's assuming the lenses are worth nothing at the end.

Canon's sold 150 million lenses as of a year or two ago. Averaged over 50 years, that'd be 3 million a year. Assuming sales are 90% lower than that average (which is way too pessimistic, as I hear they're really "only" 90% down from the peak) they're selling 300,000 lenses/year even now. So if 1% of the lenses they sell are these lenses, they'd sell my estimated 20,000 in the space of 6 years.

Really though, I just can't get to sleep and am being social on social media. It's not a dissertation or anything.

An interesting way to calculate it, but not sure the assumptions are correct.

Some other data points to consider. There are just under 150 professional sports teams in North America and there are 350 Division 1 schools in the NCAA. So that's a total pool of 500 in all of North America. Schools smaller than Division I are not going to draw photographers using $10,000 lenses, if they draw any photographers at all (most likely local newspaper photographers and sports information office photographers.) Having shot at a small college for several years, I can count on one hand the number of other professional photographers I ran into at games in any given year. I met maybe four other photographers in the entire time that had equipment similar to mine (70-200 mm F2.8 lenses indoors and a 100-400 or 100-500 zoom outdoors). Never met anyone that had a big white.

At the top tier level (professional sports and NCAA Division I Universities) the photographers are not covering just one team in one city, but are traveling from city to city covering games. Of course, no one can be in two places at once and there are many photographers are these events, but still, you have to stretch things quite a bit to get to your 20 top tier sports photographers in every city of three million.

Of course, neither of us really knows.

But, I am more inclined to fall back on @neuroanatomist 's assessment of the market, which is that the real money and real demand is always in wealthy amateurs who have disposable income and no need to balance the expense against earnings. I would also agree that this lens is probably more about Canon's image than it is about profits. (of course image does translate into profit.) The 200-400 and now the 200-500 is a highly visible lens on the sidelines of major sporting events and helps Canon retain it's image for the public that if you want to be a "real" photographer, you need a distinctive white lens.

 

[SwissFrank]

not sure the assumptions are correct

Heck neither am I! Thanks for hearing me out though.

There are just under 150 professional sports teams in North America and there are 350 Division 1 schools in the NCAA

OK, and US sports revenue is 75B/year vs. 500B/year for the world. In other words the US is 1/8th of the world sport business. If we equate US with "North America" in your team count, we could say if there are 500 good teams in the US, there'd be 4000 good teams in the world.

So if all sports photogs in the world were attached to such a team, you'd need 5 photogs per such team for my estimate of 20,000 to be reasonable.

Also note the summer Olympics has 2,000 photographers (winter 700), so I would need 10% of the world's sports photographers to be Olympics photographers for my estimate to be reasonable. Curious what percent you think that might be? I almost feel 10% might be high.

Actually I just made up the number after thinking 30 seconds :-D But it could actually be right :-D

At the top tier level (professional sports and NCAA Division I Universities) the photographers are not covering just one team in one city, but are traveling from city to city covering games

I had overlooked that, good point but still, how many teams would they cover?

the real money and real demand is always in wealthy amateurs who have disposable income and no need to balance the expense against earnings

I think it depends on the type of lens.

Like the forthcoming 35/1.2? You don't need that for sport, wedding, nature, travel, architecture, reporting, fashion, portrait, product, landscape. But well-heeled amateurs are eager to see it. I'm dying to! In fact I hope it's a 35/1.0! It's 99% amateur, 1% professional fine art maybe? To the extent professional fine art really even exists? Probably same story for 35/1.8 (at a very different budget point), 50/1.8, 50/1.2, 85/1.8?

But a 200-500/4? This seems useless even for a rich amateur's family photos. You'd get the 100-500 and the 135/1.8 for the kid's sports games and portraits of the wife; if you had a 200-500/4 it'd never leave the house. Only if the amateur were into nature photog would it make sense and even then not sure it's long enough (but yeah, TC). I might be wrong but I'd guess this is like 80% pro (sport and some nature), 20% amateur, or something.

 

[unfocused]

I'm curious where Canon goes from here. By my count, the telephoto L lenses that Canon has not replaced with direct or comparable lenses are the
70-300 L; the 300 f4 L, the 400 f5.6 L, along with the "green ring" 400 f4 DO and 70-300 DO.

Canon used to sell four or five different flavors of 70-300 lenses. They have none in the RF mount. Arguably the 100-400 RF fills the mid-range consumer niche. But, nothing yet in the bargain kit lens niche and nothing to compare to the compact and affordable 70-300 L and 70-300 DO range. I would be surprised if Canon continues to leave the gap between the $600 RF 100-400 and the $2,900 RF 100-500 open, as that is quite a gap in the price range for zooms. Add to that the holes left by the ancient 300 f4 and 400 f5.6.

I do wonder what we might see in the way of future RF telephotos. I could definitely see Canon offering an RF version/comparable of the 400 f4 DO and if their recent actions are any indication, could it be a 100-400 f4 DO?

 

[unfocused]

...But a 200-500/4? This seems useless even for a rich amateur's family photos. You'd get the 100-500 and the 135/1.8 for the kid's sports games and portraits of the wife; if you had a 200-500/4 it'd never leave the house. Only if the amateur were into nature photog would it make sense and even then not sure it's long enough (but yeah, TC). I might be wrong but I'd guess this is like 80% pro (sport and some nature), 20% amateur, or something.

I certainly agree with this. I think the 200-500/4 would be a niche lens that will almost exclusively be sold to sports photographers, agencies and rental houses.

I guess if I am going to quibble, it would be with the basic assumption that Canon will sell, expects to sell, or needs to sell 20,000 units. Honestly though, this is just an enjoyable thought exercise where neither of us can be proven wrong. So, win-win.

 

[Czardoom]

Close focus or macro type photography is not what the large white lenses are ever designed for. They are designed to collect lots of light for distant subjects.

If this were true, then why even bother with a very short minimum focus distance? The fact that there is a short minumum focus distance sorta proves that people are - and will - use it for short range subjects like flowers, insects, dragonflies, etc. I certainly do.

 

[Czardoom]

The RF versions of many lenses are HUGELY improved over their predecessors. YES, there will be many people who use these EF lenses for fun and experimentation, but I think the people who can afford an R5 also will be getting the RF primes when they come out.

That's interesting becuase I haven't seen any reviews that agree with your assessment that RF lenses are HUGEKY better than EF. I have seen some improvement at RF lenses shot wide open like the 24-105 f/4, otherwise most lenses seem to have very similar image quality as the EF lenses. Minimal improvements, often no noticeble improvement, would be my assessment from all the hundreds of comments I have seen on various forums, facebook posts, user reviews and my own limited experience.

 

[fox40phil]

" Fear not, there will be a nice teleconverter solution coming for both the Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8L IS USM and the Canon RF 200-500mm f/4L IS USM"

How is this any different from the existing 1.4x and 2x TC's? Is there going to be a new set of RF TCs?

after this line... I only can imagine one where you can put it on and off?! but just clicking it...like on the current 200-400 4.0 ?!!?! this would be insane!

 

[ToonD]

I wonder if there are many sport shooters who own/use a 400 2.8 and a 200-400 f4? Because I shoot a lot a soccer matches at f2.8 or f3.2 due to bad lighting conditions. But during daytime matches this 200-500 would be very nice. Although I'm thinking about how zooming would influence my style of shooting. Certainly I would have more "keepers" because the need for switching to a 70-200 would be way less. But a fixed focal length sometimes forces you to experiment.

 

[sanj]

I wonder if there are many sport shooters who own/use a 400 2.8 and a 200-400 f4? Because I shoot a lot a soccer matches at f2.8 or f3.2 due to bad lighting conditions. But during daytime matches this 200-500 would be very nice. Although I'm thinking about how zooming would influence my style of shooting. Certainly I would have more "keepers" because the need for switching to a 70-200 would be way less. But a fixed focal length sometimes forces you to experiment.

In my thinking, the zoom with increase your keepers dramatically.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Some other data points to consider.

According to the US bureau of labor, statistics, there are about 47,000 photographers in the US with a mean annual income of $50K. Income for the 90th percentile (top-earning ~4700 photographers) is $82K. Photography is not a lucrative profession. Given the distribution, there are probably not more than 2000 photographers in the US pulling in 6 figures. Only a fraction of those will be sports photographers.

Of course, those are personal incomes not business incomes. But they do suggest revenues for most businesses are not particularly high.

 

[scyrene]

They would introduce a new teleconverter just as I finally obtain both the existing RF ones!