Report: New Canon Super Telephoto Lenses Coming in May

[justaCanonuser]

DPAF offers a great deal more focus information than Nikon or Sony have to work with. So long as Canon has that advantage, they are only limited by processing power to stay in the lead with AF. The price, of course, is continually processing twice as many pixels, so the processors are power hungry.

You nailed it. In fact, when I am out a whole day for birding, in particular my R5 II consumes 3 full batteries minimum - okay, when nothing happens I use the waiting time to pre-select images I want to keep, and the nearly 6 Million dots EVF drains the battery quite fast, too.

 

[justaCanonuser]

Not sure that even reducing optics would solve the problem. A friend of mine who worked for Canon for many years once pointed out to me that the reason no one made the equivalent of a Metabones Speed Booster for EF-to EF is that focal reducers do not extend the focal plane like extenders do so they can only be made to fit inside the existing back focus distance of a lens. Hence, we have focal reducers that replace the EF to M and EF to R adapters, but no focal reducers for EF to EF or R to R.

Maybe the solution would be to shift the whole tele lens unit in front of the TCs backwards or forwards within the body of the lens, depending on which TC is switched in or which sort of zoom in a magical 1.0x-2.0x TC is selected. I think that would be feasible with a 30-40 k$ lens...

 

[AlanF]

The symptoms with the Z8 and the Z 600/6.3 are: the camera focuses fast (with no TC attached) and gets in particular very close to in-focus images with the first frame(s), but then starts to struggle with following frames, and the AF sort of micro-pumps around the precise focus position. First we thought it's a problem with object detection but switching off "birds" or switching it completely off doesn't really help (3D tracking activated). So the problem might be sitting deeper in the system, maybe I have to wipe dust off my old lenscal tool and check the system with it. Nikon's menus of the Z cameras allow for AF calibration, I have briefly seen at least for the Z6 III and 7 on the internet. I always thought that AFMA isn't needed anymore with modern ML cameras, but with Nikon you never know...

Never used the Nikon mirrorless system - used their latest DSLRs with the 500/5.6 PF and absolutely great AF. You are very fortunate, as I am, to have a wife who shares your interest in bird photography. I am paranoid about having back-ups for everything except wives. So, it's a good idea for your wife to have the same make gear as you to have a back up body and telephoto, share batteries, chargers etc. May I recommend that a Canon body with the RF 100-500mm? It's of similar weight and, although shorter, far more versatile than the 600/6.3.