The Canon RF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM appears to be getting closer [CR3]

InchMetric

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For those of us who have trouble with metric....

The EF 300mm f/2.8 II weighs 5.25 lb.

If the RF 300mm f/2.8 is 40% lighter, it would weigh 3.15 lb., which is pretty stunning!

I just checked The-Digital-Picture and the EF 300mm f/2.8 II weight includes hood and caps, which are close to 1/2 lb. I wonder if the RF version's weight includes these things.

P.S. for sake of comparison, the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 is 7.5 lb. This also includes caps and hood.
The RF 100-500 at 3 pounds (without needless collar/foot) is a perfect weight target.
 
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AlanF

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Not sure what Gen II has to do with this topic of their “bolting on” mounts and TCs to the Gen III recent designs.
The thread is about a new RF 300mm f/2.8. You had replied to @armd who wrote that the new 300mm should be a redesigned lens.
The suggestion is that it is a redesigned lens if it is shorter and lighter than the existing ef version. This is a favorable development and hopefully a harbinger of new formulas to come. I was very disappointed by the 400, 600, 800 RF’s which are old ef versions with adapters and tc’s bolted on.
This “slapped on” and “bolted on” stuff is silly. Why redesign a state of the art lens?

Better they keep an astounding three year old design and work on…. This lens.
which appeared to me that you were stating that the EF 300mm f/2.8 is a three year old design which they should keep. It now appears that you did not intend to mean that.
 
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unfocused

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The RF 100-500 at 3 pounds (without needless collar/foot) is a perfect weight target.
The collar and foot are not needless when you carry the camera and lens on a strap or use a tripod.
Only if you use one of those straps that connects to the tripod socket. I've never trusted those. They kept unscrewing themselves when I tried them. So, I just use an old fashioned Op/Tech neck strap (never had a problem with it and Canon used to give away Canon branded ones with CPS memberships). Shooting outdoor sports I do use a monopod and need the collar and foot, but if that's the case, weight isn't all that relevant.
 
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AlanF

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Only if you use one of those straps that connects to the tripod socket. I've never trusted those. They kept unscrewing themselves when I tried them. So, I just use an old fashioned Op/Tech neck strap (never had a problem with it and Canon used to give away Canon branded ones with CPS memberships). Shooting outdoor sports I do use a monopod and need the collar and foot, but if that's the case, weight isn't all that relevant.
I carry camera and telephoto lens with both the tripod foot and camera base connected to the strap by two caribiners. This way you have a back up if one attachment fails and a better spread of the weight, and holds the pair at a good angle. I highly recommend it for longer lenses. Here's a quick snap.
Double_Strap.jpg
 
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koenkooi

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To each his own. I handhold it and it’s light enough to attach the strap to the camera body.
I keep the tripod collar in my bag, it's very handy when I want to use the camera as a scope to show something far off to my kids. But that's pretty much the only time I use the collar, virtually all my 100-500L usage is handheld.

I really like the swing-open design on the collar, it makes attaching it when needed very low effort. Glares at the 180L
 
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Ozarker

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Stop calling computational photography "photography". It's not "photography". LITERALLY BY DEFINITION IT IS COMPUTER GENERATED "ART".
Isn't every single digital photo ever taken, "computer generated art"? Probably, but it's also still photography. No different than smearing a lens with Vaseline, using colored filters, tilt shift, or letting light strike film, etc. Goodness.
 
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AlanF

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I keep the tripod collar in my bag, it's very handy when I want to use the camera as a scope to show something far off to my kids. But that's pretty much the only time I use the collar, virtually all my 100-500L usage is handheld.

I really like the swing-open design on the collar, it makes attaching it when needed very low effort. Glares at the 180L
What do you do when going on a hike with your camera when you have to clamber a bit and use your hands to help you get round or over obstacles? Do you carry a backpack? Or, you just don't do it (the Netherlands are flat on the whole)?
 
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koenkooi

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What do you do when going on a hike with your camera when you have to clamber a bit and use your hands to help you get round or over obstacles? Do you carry a backpack? Or, you just don't do it (the Netherlands are flat on the whole)?
For short bits I attach the camera to a PD capture clip on the strap of my backpack, for longer bits it goes into the backpack. And as you say, the Netherlands are quite flat, so not much clambering to do, but I do have to carry around my kids from time to time :)

For the vacation this summer I added a neck strap to the camera body, in case I had to suddenly drop it to grab one of kids (dog poo, jellyfish, traffic, those sorts of things). That didn't happen, but it did make me consider trying the tripod socket method of carrying it.
 
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AlanF

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For short bits I attach the camera to a PD capture clip on the strap of my backpack, for longer bits it goes into the backpack. And as you say, the Netherlands are quite flat, so not much clambering to do, but I do have to carry around my kids from time to time :)

For the vacation this summer I added a neck strap to the camera body, in case I had to suddenly drop it to grab one of kids (dog poo, jellyfish, traffic, those sorts of things). That didn't happen, but it did make me consider trying the tripod socket method of carrying it.
I also cycle a lot on my upright Dutch Gazelle, and it is so convenient to have the camera/lens on a shoulder strap, and the double fixing stops the lens drooping down too much.
 
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LogicExtremist

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Isn't every single digital photo ever taken, "computer generated art"? Probably, but it's also still photography. No different than smearing a lens with Vaseline, using colored filters, tilt shift, or letting light strike film, etc. Goodness.
No, photography is painting with light, that's what the term literally means.
Conversely, painting with pixels is digital art, it's possible to paint with pixels to create images that never originated from a camera, or the real world for that matter.

Each has its place, and requires a very different set of creative skills, but it's disingenuous to present digital art in a way that may be falsely misrepresented as photography. Since digital at is limitless, and only restricted by an artist's imagination, it's easy to put together an image that would be seen as stunning photography, such as some of the fabricated composite moon over landscape shots that are astronomically impossible, but they make for mediocre digital art when compared to what full-blown digital art is capable of.
 
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LogicExtremist

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Well, this will be a can of worms!
The definition of art vs photography is pretty grey at best. I would suggest that all images from digital sensors are art but YMMV.

A digital sensor is a piece of silicon (computer designed and controlled manufacture) with photodiodes digitally recording light intensity at a point in space and then requires a computer to show the image, That's a pretty good definition of computer generated image.
The art is how it is interpreted by Canon (colour science etc) for SooC images which are jpegs. But most of us are recording in raw and post process in Adobe camera raw and then the editor's choice of computer tools (eg LR/PS) to digitally modify the image on a computer even further. Only film is a physical/chemical process to produce an image.

But let's go further for the definition of computational photography from WIkipedia using the taxonomy proposed by Shree Nayari....

Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were not possible at all with film based photography, or reduce the cost or size of camera elements. Examples of computational photography include in-camera computation of digital panoramas, high-dynamic-range images, and light field cameras. Light field cameras use novel optical elements to capture three dimensional scene information which can then be used to produce 3D images, enhanced depth-of-field, and selective de-focusing (or "post focus").
=> this was one element of my comment on rawnerf.

The definition of computational photography has evolved to cover a number of subject areas in computer graphics, computer vision, and applied optics.
=> I would include Canon's digital distortion correction SW to the applied optics to provide more usable wide angle images with smaller lenses.

These areas are given below, organized according to a taxonomy proposed by Shree K. Nayar. Within each area is a list of techniques, and for each technique one or two representative papers or books are cited.
Deliberately omitted from the taxonomy are image processing (see also digital image processing) techniques applied to traditionally captured images in order to produce better images. Examples of such techniques are image scaling, dynamic range compression (i.e. tone mapping), color management, image completion (a.k.a. inpainting or hole filling), image compression, digital watermarking, and artistic image effects.... Also omitted are techniques that produce range data, volume data, 3D models,
=> this last point would apply to rawnerf's application of denoise and 3D models.

I was using computational photography for the processing of images on phones that were better than would otherwise be due to their severely limited optical lenses and small sensors.
Overall, I will be more careful in the future to use "computational photography" phrase more accurately but in general, I am happy with how I applied the term.
Technically, it's a long stretch to call mobile phone snapshots "photography". They're a fixed narrow aperture, mainly wide and ultrawide, auto-everything HDR point and shoot, so there's not much capacity to control the light, which is a critical part of the art of photography.

The skill in photography is for the photographers to be able to "see" great compositions, or know how to create them, and then adjust the camera to be able to picture what is seen or visualised. Mobile point and shoot cameras use an algorithm to determine all the camera settings for a scene based on their AI programming of what every other image of that sort looked like. They computer makes all the decisions and decides to make the photo look like nearly every other photo before it.

For someone who understands what they're doing, they can still work within the tight technical constraints of P&S mobile cameras to do photography, as limited as the tools may be, though their understanding in composition and lighting on the subject if the latter is in their control/timing.

Next time you're at a wedding or event and see someone hand a professional photographer a mobile and ask them to take a picture of them, watch the photogs facial expression! It's like WTF am I supposed to do with that! :)
 
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AlanF

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No, photography is painting with light, that's what the term literally means.
Conversely, painting with pixels is digital art, it's possible to paint with pixels to create images that never originated from a camera, or the real world for that matter.

Each has its place, and requires a very different set of creative skills, but it's disingenuous to present digital art in a way that may be falsely misrepresented as photography. Since digital at is limitless, and only restricted by an artist's imagination, it's easy to put together an image that would be seen as stunning photography, such as some of the fabricated composite moon over landscape shots that are astronomically impossible, but they make for mediocre digital art when compared to what full-blown digital art is capable of.
"graph" comes from the Greek for "write", so the literal meaning is writing with light.
 
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LogicExtremist

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"graph" comes from the Greek for "write", so the literal meaning is writing with light.
Thanks, I'm aware of that. It's where the name for graphite comes from, being used in pencils to write with. I always wondered about the etymology, unless the term is used in the broader context of documenting something, which scribes did? :unsure:
 
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To each his own. I handhold it and it’s light enough to attach the strap to the camera body.
It’s light enough, but the balance is better when a shoulder strap is connected to the collar vs the body. On a tripod, that better balance means less vibration.

Personally, if using the 100-500 at home I leave the collar off, but taking it for a hike or traveling I put the collar on.

However, I don’t think I’ve ever used the collar for my RF 70-200/2.8 (which is the same collar as on the 100-500).
 
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