July 2020 RF Lenses RF 600mm and 800mm f/11 etc.

rndman wrote in post #19104055
Fro's review of these lenses.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=jZMou9ei2yY

I saw that. IQ is surprisingly good. and he didn't use a pod

Tired of waiting for my R5, pulled the trigger on the RF 800mm, should be here Monday. Can’t wait - just started a thread in the lens sample section, looking forward to see how these perform.

LoneRider wrote in post #19108668
Tired of waiting for my R5, pulled the trigger on the RF 800mm, should be here Monday. Can’t wait - just started a thread in the lens sample section, looking forward to see how these perform.

Cool. Let's know when it arrives.
Some pictures of it and with it are welcome.

rndman wrote in post #19109465
Cool. Let's know when it arrives.
Some pictures of it and with it are welcome.

Arrives tomorrow, probably too late for do anything with (“By end of day delivery”). I have been on vacation this past week, wobn’t be until next weekend before I can do anything with it probably...

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19092945
Keep in mind that is a fixed f11 from what I can tell

IOW, it is at its sharpest wide open!

John Sheehy wrote in post #19110616
IOW, it is at its sharpest wide open!

Or its at its softest... lol Depends on that darn glass and whether it's almost full or almost empty...

John Sheehy wrote in post #19110616
IOW, it is at its sharpest wide open!

Also at it’s sharpest stopped all the way down

MatthewK wrote in post #19093111
The 600 and 800... oof. That f/11 gives you such a thin margin of usability before you're blasting through the ISO roof, they're just not a viable option for my birding use case.

What are the alternatives under consideration? If you're comparing to an 800/5.6, then you are going to get more noise, more diffraction, and less background blur, for sure, but in any case where one would be doing an 18x12mm crop from FF with a 400/5.6, there is no noise benefit from 1/4 the ISO compared to FF with 800/11; in fact, your noise will be finer with most cameras with the non-cropped 800/11 version. Background blur and diffraction are the same at 800/11 and 2x-cropped 400/5.6.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19094669
Also to add... there has been so much concern raised over DOF with long lenses, so why in the heck would one say f11 isn't enough sometimes for DOF control, then talk about 10K lenses like 600f4/800f4, etc.

If you cannot make high quality bird photography from lenses like the 100-400, 200-600 and think that you can only walk away with money shots with a fast long prime that cost the same as an AWD Infinity sedan, then I just have no more words.

There are some independent roles for the larger apertures. Shallow DOF and stronger background blur are one. The new cameras aren't going to change anything there. Darker viewfinders were problematic with DSLRs, but EVFs automatically brighten. The larger-aperture cameras have historically AFed faster, especially in marginal lighting conditions, and these new cameras do actually AF smaller aperture lenses much better than older cameras, so the AF argument for larger apertures gets a little weaker, as there are less and less conditions in which AF will not be satisfactory. Same for noise; the new R cameras have fairly fine, random noise, and are easier to clean up with higher ISOs than some of the earlier cameras where people developed their taste for large apertures.

So, while there are certainly advantages to larger apertures, the disadvantages to smaller ones are getting less serious in some regards.

Sure, my comment that was quoted though was generally around the progression of the thread.

First there was concern raised around how DOF even on an f11 just may not be enough for tack sharp on the eyes of a bird photo (despite the fact that your distance and framing and f11 aperture will likely create a DOF that will cover that bird, or at least the entire head), but then suggest looking into these other fast primes and only going to f6.3, where this "issue" becomes potentially even more accentuated.

Those previous points, if I understood the comments leading to my reply you quoted, don't seem to be in alignment.

John Sheehy wrote in post #19110640
There are some independent roles for the larger apertures. Shallow DOF and stronger background blur are one. The new cameras aren't going to change anything there. Darker viewfinders were problematic with DSLRs, but EVFs automatically brighten. The larger-aperture cameras have historically AFed faster, especially in marginal lighting conditions, and these new cameras do actually AF smaller aperture lenses much better than older cameras, so the AF argument for larger apertures gets a little weaker, as there are less and less conditions in which AF will not be satisfactory. Same for noise; the new R cameras have fairly fine, random noise, and are easier to clean up with higher ISOs than some of the earlier cameras where people developed their taste for large apertures.

So, while there are certainly advantages to larger apertures, the disadvantages to smaller ones are getting less serious in some regards.

Weight too. I imagine trail running with the big whites was never an option, whereas these seem quite a bit more doable. I think as photographers, we’re a little nuts and feel fine lugging heavy equipment, but sometimes when friends and family want to not be photographers and enjoy hikes and runs on a brisk pace I think these f/11 lenses would do nicely as a compromise to getting new friends (and family at the extreme) .

Got mine today, I’ll just leave this here, SOOC except for resizing....

Shade
ISO 100
1/10 second shutter

Photo from LoneRider's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1059435)

.
Cary,

I believe it was I who both complained about f11 not providing enough depth of field in some situations, where I would want to go up to f13 or f16 or f22 ...... but then also said that it would be really difficult to go from a fast prime (like an 800mm f5.6) to one of these f11 lenses because f11 won't provide enough background blur and subsequent subject isolation in some situations.

On the surface, it may appear that my concerns are contradictory, but they are not. . In order to be most useful, a lens must provide optimum results in a wide array of different situations. . If a lens excels at one thing, but comes up short at many other things, then it is not a very useful lens for one who shoots a wide variety of scenarios all in the same outing.

I think I responded to your post with a more detailed explanation in post #28. . Feel free to go back and read that if it still seems to you that my statements were contradicting one another. . I think I cleared up any apparent contradiction in that post.

If anyone finds that in the course of a morning's shoot, f11 is the absolute perfect aperture for every single shot they take, then I would be very surprised. . Almost every shot that I take, when I examine the background, I almost always wish that I had been a third of a stop wider, or a two thirds of a stop narrower, etc. . Even with a lot of apertures available to me, I may get it really close to perfect, but still miss absolute perfection most of the time, and that really bothers me. . I think that for one to whom the background rendering is just as important as the subject itself, that being stuck at f11 may be more limiting than one may be able to stomach. . Not all of us use computer software or editing workflows that are compatible with using software to blur a background after the fact. . That may work for some of us, but others, such as myself, must rely on the "as shot" results when it comes to background rendering.


.

LoneRider wrote in post #19110684
Got mine today, I’ll just leave this here, SOOC except for resizing....

Shade
ISO 50
1/6 second shutter

Gallery photo (hosted):
posted by LoneRider originally in forum: Lens Sample Photo Archive

Oh, did I mention handheld?

I have a few more of my initial test shots in the Lens sample forum, nothing too special but I think this lens definitely is going to impress.

1/6 is pretty rough for anything that has a pulse...great for car license plates...but that'd be hard for a lot of birds...but your ISO was low...so not too hard to get that up to a slightly usable shutter speed.

LoneRider wrote in post #19110629
Also at it’s sharpest stopped all the way down

Freedom from choice!