Canon 500 4.5L

[poogpost]

Anyone have any experience with this lens? There have been a couple for sale in the past few weeks and I am wondering if it is a good alternative to the new 500 4L IS at a decent price. Looking at getting a longer lens without breaking the bank!
What is a fair price for a used 500 4.5L in excellent condition?

[DocFrankenstein]

And same question about the sigma 500 f/4.5 APO

[poogpost]

anyone anyone?

[Jim_T]

AFAIK Canon only makes the 500 f/4 in the EF series..

I did a quick google and see Canon did make a 500 f/4.5 but it's an old FD series lens.

It requires an FD to EF adapter to fit on an EOS camera.. (which could affect how it focuses at infinity) and of course would be fully manual.. Autofocus won't work.

[scottbergerphoto]

And same question about the sigma 500 f/4.5 APO
I have the Sigma 500 f/4.5 EX APO HSM (whew, too many letters!) It's a great lens. It's very sharp and focuses very fast. The cost of the Canon 500 f/4 was too much. The Sigma is $1500 less.
There are examples here:
http://www.pbase.com/scottbergerphoto/prospect_park_lake
Regards,
Scott

[CyberDyneSystems]

There is a Canon EF 500mm f/4.5L and it is an excellent lens. It was discontinued some time ago, so it is not in the current EF line-up;

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/l_plant/kumitate/ku_5/kumitate5.html
http://www.tanchung.com/canon/ef500mmf45xu.htm

I don't think you would sacrifice much, if anything by way of image quality going with the f/4.5 Canon,. what you would sacrifice are the following;
IS and autofocus with a 1.4X T-con on a 10D/20D/300D camera.

It's advantages are that it is both less expensive and significantly lighter than the f/4.
****************************************

Sigma 500mm f/4.5EX HSM

Scott and I both have and recomend this lens.
It's advantages and disadvantages Vs. the Canon f/4L are pretty much identical to the Canon f/4.5

I'd be hard pressed to admit that it is any less capble than the Canon f/4.5,. or any lower in image quality. And like the Canon f/4.5,. if you can find a good used one,. it can be had for a significant savings. In fact if you find a used one,. do not pay more than $2,400.00 for a "perfect" condition copy. If your patient you should be able to find one for $2,000.00

If you go to the Digital photogallery database here;
http://photography-on-the.net/gallerydatabase/index.php

..and search by Lens type,. you'll find my galleries as well.

[CyberDyneSystems]

And same question about the sigma 500 f/4.5 APO

Doc,. there are TWO versions of this lens...

You really do NOT want to end up with the older "APO" version of this lens.

There are two "letter suffixes" that HAVE to be in the name of the lens for you to differentiate from the older version.

1. EX
The New version of the lens is part of the EX series of lenses

2. HSM
the newer version of the lens has Sigma's excellent and very fast "Hyper Sonic focus Motor"

The older lens will only say "APO" (for Apochromatic, the new lens says this too) but this older lens, though still optically excellent,. has much lower build quality (it wasn't untill Sigma launched the EX series that they really started to develop a solid rep) and most importantly,. the old focus motor was JUNK!

Also,. the old lens is about 98% likely to cause an "Error 99" as it was made before the Elan 7 generation of aperture control voltage.

[DocFrankenstein]

Oh my god!

They weren't kidding about a wimberey, did they? :cry:

I am actually considering this lens. I mean... I wanted to spring for the canon 400 f/5.6 L... but the sigma can be had for "only" twice as much...

How do I make money with it again? :confused:

[charlesu]

I had the 500 4.5 L lens and it is a GREAT lens. You can handhold for a few shots but mostly you need a mono or a prop of some kind. I only sold it because I wanted to get the 300 2.8 IS L. Which I also love. The only think you are really missing on the 500 is IS. Which, since you are using a monopod or something almost all the time anyway, is not as big a deal as it might be.

Price? $2500 to $3000 depending on condition. I sold mine for $2900 but it was cherry.