# come on, make an affordable 600mm or 800mm!!



## stilscream (Feb 8, 2012)

For $1-3,000 and I think prosumer and wildlife enthusiasts would be stoked to finally get the reach from a quality brand, without getting divorced for buying it. Even if it was f8ish, had IS, and a USM...sell in droves, no?


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## Gothmoth (Feb 8, 2012)

stilscream said:


> For $1-3,000 and I think prosumer and wildlife enthusiasts would be stoked to finally get the reach from a quality brand, without getting divorced for buying it. Even if it was f8ish, had IS, and a USM...sell in droves, no?



buy a T2 adapter and you get a 500 or 800mm for 200$... LOL.

or buy a 300mm f4 IS + 2x TC.... all you want (f8, IS, USM) for ~1600 euro.

what YOU want is a fantasy product that is as good a BRAND product but costs next to nothing.


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## neuroanatomist (Feb 8, 2012)

stilscream said:


> Even if it was f8ish, had IS, and a USM...sell in droves, no?



No, because f/8 lenses will not autofocus on most Canon bodies. As for an 'affordable' 600mm f/5.6 lens, that means an iris diaphragm of 107mm, so it's much like a 300/2.8 lens. The only way to make a truly affordable long lens like that is a mirror design, and that has numerous IQ and performance issues. 

Given the recent price trends, it seems apparent that Canon is moving in the other direction, the complete opposite of affordability.


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## Caps18 (Feb 8, 2012)

f/8 does focus in live view, it is just slow. And you will need a tripod.

Look on Amazon. There are some non-Canon brands that make long lenses. I'm not sure if they are really good or not. I was thinking about getting one that to take pictures of the Moon and planets. However, getting a telescope with an adapter would be better at some point.


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## unfocused (Feb 8, 2012)

Yes! Because these third party lenses are less than $3,000. What? They're not?

http://www.adorama.com/SG50045NNKAF.html 
http://www.adorama.com/SG80056NKAF.html 
http://www.adorama.com/SG200500DEOS.html 
http://www.adorama.com/SG300800EOSD.html

Well there is this: http://www.adorama.com/PRO50063EOS.html


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## Dianoda (Feb 8, 2012)

Well, we'd need at least f/5.6 for AF to function. And I'm all for a 600mm f/5.6L IS, but the lens would need to be as big as the 300 f/2.8 II (and probably cost as much), because unfortunately physics dictates front element size. So it'd still be a pretty hefty lens.

How about this for an interesting idea: an EF-S super tele? Think about it, an EF-S 500mm f/4 could be close in size to the EF 400L f/5.6. If my math is right, a designed for APS-C 500mm f/4 would need a front element of approx. 77-78mm, so with a fudge factor to limit edge distortion plus lens casing, etc., a final lens diameter of 90mm is probably pretty reasonable. So you'd get crazy, crazy reach (800mm eff) in a compact package. Birders/wildlife guys would go nuts.

But the cost? Who knows? I don't think it'd be all that affordable if Canon had to grow fluorite crystals for it. My guess is that it could probably be done for around $3K, and for less if no fluorite element. Part of me wants to see Canon make it just for the hell of it. It's a crazy fun idea.


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## Fleetie (Feb 8, 2012)

Dianoda said:


> Well, we'd need at least f/5.6 for AF to function. And I'm all for a 600mm f/5.6L IS, but the lens would need to be as big as the 300 f/2.8 II (and probably cost as much), because unfortunately physics dictates front element size. So it'd still be a pretty hefty lens.
> 
> How about this for an interesting idea: an EF-S super tele? Think about it, an EF-S 500mm f/4 could be close in size to the EF 400L f/5.6. If my math is right, a designed for APS-C 500mm f/4 would need a front element of approx. 77-78mm, so with a fudge factor to limit edge distortion plus lens casing, etc., a final lens diameter of 90mm is probably pretty reasonable. So you'd get crazy, crazy reach (800mm eff) in a compact package. Birders/wildlife guys would go nuts.



But your math isn't right.

A 500mm f/4 lens is a 500mm f/4 lens, no matter what size sensor you put behind it. It still needs an entrance pupil of 500/4=125mm, regardless.

As Neuro has pointed out many times here, there is NO advantage to making lenses for EF-S when it comes to long telephoto lenses, for this very reason. There is nothing to be gained in terms of lens size or therefore, cost.


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## Dianoda (Feb 8, 2012)

Fleetie said:


> But your math isn't right.
> 
> A 500mm f/4 lens is a 500mm f/4 lens, no matter what size sensor you put behind it. It still needs an entrance pupil of 500/4=125mm, regardless.
> 
> As Neuro has pointed out many times here, there is NO advantage to making lenses for EF-S when it comes to long telephoto lenses, for this very reason. There is nothing to be gained in terms of lens size or therefore, cost.



Ugh, you are right. So the lens I describe is really more of a 312mm F/4. Crap. Let me serve as a warning for those of you who would try to function with not enough sleep and too much coffee.


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## lol (Feb 8, 2012)

I have long wondered the same too. Could there be a way to make more affordable super-teles. With AF and preferably IS. Let's take it a given we can't disobey the laws of physics when it comes to sizes. The front element has to be big to support at least f/5.6 for AF. What else can we do to make it cheaper, and preferably lighter?

Is ditching glass an option? What are modern plastics like? Can we get some of an adequate optical grade. Of course I'm not suggesting I want fluorite performance for a fraction of the cost. But what if it could be made an acceptable quality. No L lens, but "good enough" so that it isn't considered worthless junk. Even take a leaf out of the mirrorless system cheat sheet, and allow easier software correctable "flaws" in the design to make it easier. Lateral CA and distortion can be higher if it helps make the lens simpler and cheaper.

Also could more be made of whatever the trick is Sony used in their 500/8 with AF?

And finally, an example of cheap, high quality, fast optics at a long focal length: the Skywatcher Quattro F4 Imaging Newtonian. They do several models of this, in 200 and 250mm aperture, giving 800mm and 1000mm focal lengths respectively, both at f/4! If you go for the cheap steel body version, the 800mm f/4 is yours for around £400. I wouldn't want to hand hold it though.


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## stilscream (Feb 8, 2012)

Yeah, I wanted to double that 600mm with an extender, but damn, I paid $3,000 for my car and I am going to pay $12k for a lens or $150 for a POS lens and not much in between in the non-mirror 600mm or more. 

I have tried older tamron, but canon knows what they are doing. Color accuracy is great even on the cheapest lenses. 

Are older non-IS versions worth the money?


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## wickidwombat (Feb 8, 2012)

stilscream said:


> Yeah, I wanted to double that 600mm with an extender, but damn, I paid $3,000 for my car and I am going to pay $12k for a lens or $150 for a POS lens and not much in between in the non-mirror 600mm or more.
> 
> I have tried older tamron, but canon knows what they are doing. Color accuracy is great even on the cheapest lenses.
> 
> Are older non-IS versions worth the money?



I just got the FD600 f4.5 and the edmika adapter, total cost including shipping the lens from japan and the adpater from canada came in around $1800. manual focus only but damn it is sharp and my copy is in really mint condition not a scratch on the paint and the glass is crystal clear. only problem is my kenko 1.4TC wont fit on it because of the tab at the back


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Feb 8, 2012)

I had a Tamron 200-500mm Zoom, they are available, and a fairly decent lens. The big issue is that they are so long that they are extremely difficult to hold still, even on a medium duty tripod. Its f/6.3, and difficult to get the shutter speed up, but the price is right.

Frankly, my 100-400mm L will run circles around it, but it cost $500 more.

Here is a image of my Petunias from close to MFD. Its been several years since I had it, and I did not save most of the images after I sold it.

Its one of the few good quality lenses for a low price.


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## lol (Feb 9, 2012)

I have considered the likes of the Tamron 200-500 and Sigma 50-500 and similar in place of the 100-400L I still have as my benchmark. I've never been convinced the extra 100mm is good enough to be worth it.

One time I did dabble with a used copy of the original Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 (no IS) lens. It was old, with a 1987 date code, and it looked it with lots of cosmetic body damage. But that did bring the price down into the ball park of a new 100-400L so I got it to play with for a bit. An actual 600mm lens with AF has never been cheaper.

Here's a direct comparison I did against the 100-400L on a duck that made the local news!:





7D + 100-400L at 400mm at f/8





7D + EF 300mm f/2.8 + Sigma 2x for 600mm at f/8

Both above are 100% crops although I think the forum is shrinking them further. I think they were from camera jpeg so arguably you could process them harder if you use raw.

You could also try using it like a macro...





This is not a crop! Resize only. 7D 600mm f/8.

I didn't keep it in the end. It was too heavy I never wanted to carry it anywhere. Also I felt excessively restricted by the lack of zoom. I suppose if I were to look at this again, the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 (with 2x on it), with or without OS, could be interesting, but I'm also holding out to see what the 200-400 extender is like, and at what price! Somehow I don't think it'll deliver the "affordable 600mm".


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Feb 9, 2012)

I had a used non-IS Canon 600mm f/4. HEAVY, and with the big Wimberly head and heavy duty tripod, it was too much for me to carry around.

You merely have to see one to realize that its going to be exquisitely expensive to manufacture.


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## jimmy156 (Feb 9, 2012)

I would *love* Canon to make a 500mm f/5.6 (or f/6.3 and use the same tricks sigma et al. do to make it autofocus) and price it somewhere remotely attainable for the enthusiast.

A 400mm 5.6 can be had for under £1000, so if it was around £2000 for a 500mm f5.6 would that be too much to ask?

This would be the lens I would save to buy.


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## Caps18 (Feb 9, 2012)

That would be interesting. Although with a 300mm with a 1.4 is a 420mm f/5.6.


The other option is this type of lens, but I know nothing about the quality of it. This is what I was talking about when I said to look on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-650-2600mm-Definition-Telephoto-Digital/dp/B001GKLLRY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1328748392&sr=8-3

it is an f/8-32 however, so you would have slow liveview focus only.


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## ejenner (Feb 9, 2012)

Or, and here's a shocker, how about canon let us use autofocus at f8 - even if it is not good in low light?

Considering what the 5DII does with an f5.6 lens in low-moderate light, I wonder what it would do at f8 in the types of situations you'd mostly use these lenses.

I guess some have done it with 3rd party at 6.3 or with taping the 2x on an f4 (I, like many I've seen comment have never gotten this to work).

I bet it works OK. The argument used to be 'get a 1D body', but seriously I don't think it is too much to ask for in a $3000 body, realistically.


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## wickidwombat (Feb 9, 2012)

i put the EG-S focus screen in my 5D2 and using the 600f4.5 its quite easy to MF accurately... It solved the AF issues i was having with the camera anyway


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## unfocused (Feb 9, 2012)

Caps18 said:


> That would be interesting. Although with a 300mm with a 1.4 is a 420mm f/5.6.
> 
> 
> The other option is this type of lens, but I know nothing about the quality of it. This is what I was talking about when I said to look on Amazon.
> ...



This reminds me of a lens I bought back in the 70's. I was working at a small newspaper and another photographer and I each bought these 400 mm lenses from an outfit that advertised in the back of Popular Photography. They were very cheap (under $75) came with a 2x converter and worth every penny. 

I think the glass was made from recycled Coke bottles. 

They were pre-set lenses, which if you don't know what that means, it meant that there were two aperture rings. You turned one of them to the f-stop you wanted to shoot at and then you focused the lens wide open and spun the other ring to the pre-selected f-stop before you shot. It really didn't matter, because you pretty much had to use them wide open anyway.

Even by the standards of the 70s they weren't sharp, but in an emergency, when you really needed a long telephoto, they were better than nothing (just barely, though). 

These look like a modern-day version of those lenses.


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## wickidwombat (Feb 9, 2012)

unfocused said:


> I think the glass was made from recycled Coke bottles....



Are you sure it wasnt Tamron


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## Caps18 (Feb 9, 2012)

unfocused said:


> Even by the standards of the 70s they weren't sharp, but in an emergency, when you really needed a long telephoto, they were better than nothing (just barely, though).
> 
> These look like a modern-day version of those lenses.



I don't disagree, but would still like a fair test done. And it would be nice if there was some way to allow f/8 lens focusing for the center point on sunny days of the 5D...

I have a telescope from the 80s that I have been able to connect to my camera. It is 900mm, but the quality of the focus you get is quite blurry. You can make out a license plate, but it doesn't come close to a 300 f/4 + 1.4x + 2x.

I will post some pictures of the Moon I took with that setup this weekend.


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## KeithR (Feb 9, 2012)

jimmy156 said:


> so if it was around £2000 for a 500mm f5.6 would that be too much to ask?


£2000 (ish) will get you a new, UK stock Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 OS: that and a 2x gets you out to 600mm for not a huge amount more, or - as I'm doing at the moment pending getting a 2x - you can stack two 1.4s for a 588mm f/5.6 - handholdable, too.

Or, if you happen to have a Kenko _1.5_ in the TC stack, you've got 630mm at f/5.6 (that's a handholdable 1008mm, with AF, with the "crop factor" played in).

The 588mm (940mm with crop factor) option works pretty well, really.


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## Hillsilly (Feb 9, 2012)

Sir Frans Lanting started off with a mirror lens. Didn't seem to hurt him.

I've got an old MF Minolta 400mm f5.6 lens that I connect to micro four thirds camera. This essentially becomes an image stabilised 800mm f5.6 (in 35mm talk when you factor in the 2x crop factor). Image quality is very good for a cheap-ish option. But its not perfect. In a lot of high contrast situations I get some noticeable purple fringing. But with a 2x teleconverter, that's 1600mm and its still ok. With two 2x teleconverters, you get to 3200mm and you can take some identifiable pictures of Venus and Jupiter (although they are still very small, and the image quality is ordinary). I should buy some Canon teleconverters and see how the old lens with cheap teleconverters compares with a newer lens. 

I'd love for Canon to make an affordable 600mm or 800mm with autofocus.


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## torger (Feb 9, 2012)

"Affordable" is a relative term. Due to the very large glass elements required, long telephoto lenses can never be cheap. But clearly, Canon has the most expensive tele lenses compared to the competitors, possibly the best too though. Is the higher price due to the fluorite glass?

Here in Sweden a Canon 600/4 costs about €120k, while a Nikon 600/4 costs €80k. None of them is exactly cheap, but if you borrow money to finance your bird photography hobby, €80k vs €120k still makes a difference.

The version I was considerably less expensive, so clearly it is possible to make a lower cost lens if you compromise a little bit with the image quality. There is a middle-ground cost-and-quality-wise between mirror designs and the highest end flourite designs...


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## jimmy156 (Feb 9, 2012)

KeithR said:


> jimmy156 said:
> 
> 
> > so if it was around £2000 for a 500mm f5.6 would that be too much to ask?
> ...



hmm i hadn't really given that Sigma much thought, although i have heard very good things about it! I'm not against Sigma at all, i have a 120-400mm as my long lens.

What teleconvertors are you using Sigma/Canon/other? This would actually be a viable uprgade for me if i can earn a bit more money!


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## Maui5150 (Feb 9, 2012)

Great in theory, but I think you underestimate the cost of producing glass that size as well as once these lenses get so large, and extended, manufacturing defects increase greatly. 12 inches out if one of the lenses is off by a smidge, that error is amplified greatly.

Secondly, the demand for these lenses is soft. Most of the users are high end sports photogs or nature photogs who can write off expensive lenses. For the average joe, look at the complaints and whines people have on the 70-200 F/2.8 IS II and then think just how heavy a 600mm is by comparison, not to mention that a decent tripod to hold this lens will be up there as well. 

The EF 600 F/4 IS weights almost 12 pounds alone.


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## torger (Feb 9, 2012)

Has anyone tried the 300/2.8 with tele converters? Not exactly cheap, but insanely sharp. It seems from test chart crops like that lens with a 2x III TC produces almost as good results as a 600/4 version I.


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## xROELOFx (Feb 9, 2012)

torger said:


> Has anyone tried the 300/2.8 with tele converters? Not exactly cheap, but insanely sharp. It seems from test chart crops like that lens with a 2x III TC produces almost as good results as a 600/4 version I.


i use my 300 with the 1.4x extender. it's really really good! i don't have the 2x extender, so i don't know who the results from that combination are.

check the lens gallery for some example pictures of the 300 + 1.4x: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php/topic,2603.msg68617.html#msg68617


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## frisk (Feb 9, 2012)

Getting an affordable 800mm lens is certainly doable....getting a high-quality one is certainly doable. The hard task is to get a high-quality, affordable one.

I have one 800 mm lens myself - an old Vivitar preset lens, adapted for EOS, and it was very affordable 







As for the quality, well, actually, it was surprisingly good, compared to what I expected....well, my expectations were not that high, but once I put it on a heavy tripod, it did actually surprise me. I did try to add a 1.4extender, and a 2x extender (as well as an absurd combination of a 1.4 and 2x extenders, resulting in the equivalent of a 2240mm lens....but by that time the quality was pretty bad, as the following photos show:

The view from my office (wide-angle, 10mm):





Same scene, 135mm





Same scene, with the 800mm lens - as I said, not all bad, and this is on a pretty lousy tripod.





Same scene, with the 800mm lens and a 2x extender - getting pretty bad.





Same scene, with the 800mm lens, the 2.0extender and the 1.4 extender....not usable for anything , but it was fun.


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