Too popular, just managed to get two places on the boat for mid-July - fully booked on every other day. Farne is closed because of bird flu. It's great having a wife who also does bird photos so worth putting up with her having the 100-500.
I'm afraid I am going to agree with those who think this is not going to make much difference - and if the lens is heavy, will not really be for birding, especially birds in flight. By all means, rent the lens, or buy it from a place that will give 30 days to make up your mind and accepts returns (Just be careful to keep the lens in as-new condition...) if you decide to give it a try. While folks love the idea of TCs, they are often not quite what one hopes for if you shoot hand held. Shooting hand held, the results with TCs is often little better than just cropping more, at least in my experience. Depends on many factors, of course, mostly the sharpness of the lens itself and the quality of the TC, and hand held technique. Plus the atmospheric conditions which often negate the benefit of TCs due to temperature distortion, and haze and humidity. Of course, and this is important, I can only speak from my experience and your experience may be very different.
I gradually got my wife hooked on photography. I knew I was done for when she began using my 100-400 I all the time. After the II came out I eventually gave up and bought a second one.
The advantage of using the same systems is that when we travel we have back-up bodies and lenses, as well as sharing batteries! And, for some crucial shots. I missed yesterday two kingfishers mating, which took about a second, and she got them!And I got mine hooked on cellphone-photography, thus saving lots of money.
Three people (I’m including myself in the account) wanting something that makes no sense from a marketing standpoint does not make it any more likely to happen.
I had the chance yesterday with a kingfisher (the small Eurasian one) posing for me 30-40m away to test the RF 100-500mm on the R5 at 500mm and 1000mmm using the 2xTC. Again, very disappointing results. So, this morning I did a series of comparisons using charts at 20m distance, hand held. It seems the problem is one of AF consistency. Occasionally, the 2x performed beautifully, with the 1.4x improvement I have found earlier. Most of the time not. The 800 f/11 was as good as previously found.
Yes unlikely but it’s good to dream. Putting on extenders is a pain. Interesting niche product for a third party manufacturer
Lucky you! My wife wouldn't even carry an Instamatic.
In the unlikely event that a 3rd party made one, I doubt the optics would be sufficiently good that I'd consider using one with a Canon supertele lens. Dreams are nice.
No mention of whether or not the 200-500 will have a drop-in filter slot.
Far more likely it has neither, but is a 1.4x/2x switchable TC as described in the actual patent for a teleconverter.
There was this one woman... but I was Canon, she was Nikon. There was no point in even asking her out...
Having switchable 1.4x/2x TC is still advantageous. Of course, the real questions I have are: 1) What is the size? and 2) What is the mass? Is the switchable TC heavier than the separate 1.4x and 2x TC combined? The current TCs are nice because they are relatively small and easy to pack around other gear.
