Would you spend $12K on a lens?

xarqi wrote in post #14897676
Use your 100-400 and crop. You don't need anything better for these purposes. If you want, you can pay me 50% of what you would have wasted as a consultancy fee!

What if he still needed to crop with 600 or 800?
I always count on cropping to 50% with any lens, so a shorter lens means cropping to 75%+.. not ideal.

1Tanker wrote in post #14897820
What if he still needed to crop with 600 or 800?
I always count on cropping to 50% with any lens, so a shorter lens means cropping to 75%+.. not ideal.

If you always crop 50% with any lens, then you'd crop the same regardless of the focal length.

Bonbridge wrote in post #14897459
For 12K You can get:

- 600LII

Or:
- 5D3
- 17-40L
- 35L
- 24-70L
- 85L
- 70-200LII

No single hair on my head would go for option one. But I am not a big tele user at all.

One would presume that if you are thinking of a 600L, you already have the rest of the kit taken care of.

tkbslc wrote in post #14897902
If you always crop 50% with any lens, then you'd crop the same regardless of the focal length.

I meant a minimum ( but hopefully not need that or more). If i expect to crop to ~50% with an 800, then a 100-400 is going to leave me disappointed.. no 2 ways about it.

I disagree. Even on a video monitor, I think a long lens can produce far superior photos than cropping a 400. Of course, it depends on what you are photographing. I like taking photos of birds and critters. I used my 400mm with a 1.4 extender on my 7D crop body and tried to take a photo of a bald eagle about 100+ yards away. That was the equivalent of 896mm and I still had major cropping. It came out "ok" but I know if I had an 800mm (for instance), it would have been much nicer, without the severe cropping. And that would be if I was still talking about my 7D. With the 5D 400mm wouldn't even come close to what a longer lens would have produced. It isn't always possible to get close.

BTW, I did pick up an EF 2EX II last night. I'll give that a test with my 100-400 and see how it does. But that puts it at f11, on my 5D3

I also checked into renting an 800mm, just to see what it's like. They wanted $8000 for a deposit, just to rent one.

There are several good rental companies that don't charge you for the deposit.
Cameralensrentals.com and lensrentals.com are a couple that I use.
If you're using one of the long primes make sure you have a quality tripod.
I use the 400 f2.8 IS with the 2x III and love it.

Lenses maintain there value quite well. If you can swing it, do so. You can always sell it for 85%+ of what you paid for it. The last three superteles I have purchased have fetched me more money on the resale than what I spent to begin with (averaging about 170%, but I'm been lucky).

Hell no. Even if I had the money I wouldn't. Especially when you're not making money of it. There's a gazillion other things you could do with 12k that are much more fun than any of the above.

Go 300 f/2.8+2x converter if you must.

TijmenDal wrote in post #14898100
Hell no. Even if I had the money I wouldn't. Especially when you're not making money of it. There's a gazillion other things you could do with 12k that are much more fun than any of the above.

Go 300 f/2.8+2x converter if you must.

Would you say the same if you were pulling in 300k/year with no debt/expenses?

birder_herper wrote in post #14898059
Lenses maintain there value quite well. If you can swing it, do so. You can always sell it for 85%+ of what you paid for it. The last three superteles I have purchased have fetched me more money on the resale than what I spent to begin with (averaging about 170%, but I'm been lucky).

This. I look at lenses more as a rental than a purchase. 85% is generally pretty easy to recover. On quality glass well maintained it could be much higher.

I have rented several times from the lensrentals.com. I buy the additional breakage and loss protection on the equipment and there is no deposit required (insurance is about 10-15 extra bucks per day)

I rented about 6K worth of gear couple weeks ago and they did not require a deposit.

gjl711 wrote in post #14901540
This. I look at lenses more as a rental than a purchase. 85% is generally pretty easy to recover. On quality glass well maintained it could be much higher.

I was told the same thing as well....trying to see my almost brand new Zeiss 35 f/1.4 ZE for 70% of it's price and nobody wants it. Tell me more about investments....

Ya, those days are over. A few years ago you could put a lens up for sale and it would be snapped up the same day. Not anymore.

MikeMSD wrote in post #14892623
I'm stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

I'm trying to find a solution to a longer lens. I have a 7D body and a 5D3 body. I have a 70-200mm f2.8 zoom and the 100-400mm f4L zoom. I'd like to have something in the 600 or 800mm range. I would prefer to have a prime but they are costly.

Options include:
1) using my 100-400mm on my crop body, as I do now. But that leaves my new 5D3 kind of out of the picture (no pun intended).

2) using the 100-400mm on my 5D3 and a 2X tele-converter.

3) buying an after-market prime

4) buying a Canon prime

Problem: I'm not a pro and not making any money on photography. I just take photos for fun and for my own use. But I'm a bit of a perfectionist, when I have a choice between good and not so good.

What would be a good solution to hitting that 600 or 800mm goal? Does one lose too much going to a 2x tele-converter? Would a 400mm f2.8L prime, with a 2X even approach the quality of an 800 prime?

Would you spend $12-$14K for a lens, if you weren't making money on photography?

Thanks,

If I had 12k to spend on a lens...


I'd buy a medium format body of your choosing and get a leaf digital back. The 65megapixel can be found on eBay.

I probably should have gone with a 503cw but I found a deal on an RZ67 ii that I couldn't refuse. And the mamiyas 110mm is sharper than the Zeiss 80mm.

bohdank wrote in post #14902197
Ya, those days are over. A few years ago you could put a lens up for sale and it would be snapped up the same day. Not anymore.

It still happens with popular lenses. Zeiss 35mm is not really that desirable for most people. The 35L is fantastic, has AF and is cheaper. The Zeiss is a little better, but it's more money and has no AF.

A $5,000+ lens might take a few months to sell as the buying pool is limited and if you have that much to spend on a lens, you might as well fork out another grand and get a new one with warranty. I think the best turnover is in sub $2000 lenses. Those are pretty easy to sell and saving $200-300 vs new is a significant percentage.