Canon today finally announced the availability of a long-awaited telephoto lens. It is a standard 200-400mm f/4 lens
If you were willing to monkey with bayonetting a teleconverter on and off the lens every now and then, the price of this Canon lens would instead buy you a Nikon D800 with superior image quality to any Canon body, a Nikon 200-400/4, a Nikon teleconverter, and a full complement of professional Nikon lenses at focal lengths shorter than 200mm. But it would be crazy to let rational thought interfere with the purchase of a new photography tool!
More: buy the lens at Amazon
[Note: to my Canon-owning friends who ask me about a more reasonably priced lens for kids’ sports photography I generally recommend the Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6L
Whoa. Aren’t you a long time Canon user that knows a bit 🙂 about all thing photography? Is the D800 really that good?
Oh, geesh — has Canon glass really gotten that expensive? I wish I still had the 300mm f/2.8 and 400mm f/4 I had awhile back — I could have sold ’em now and bought a house or something.
Tim: Friends have the D800. The images are stunning. As I think I noted in an earlier posting, my Sony RX100 ($650 point and shoot camera) produced better JPEGs in the constrasty light of Antarctica than my $3500 Canon 5D Mark III. Canon sensors are state of the art… for 2005 when the 5D was introduced. But Sony (and even now Toshiba, to judge by the latest cheap Nikon DSLR) is crushing Canon in dynamic range, which is usually the limiting image quality factor in digital photography.
Interesting. Several photographers I follow are leaning heavily toward Sony’s NEX7 (including a hard-core Nikon guy). I’m still holding a grudge against Sony for that whole root-kit debacle. But Canon is getting a bit ridiculous ($12K for this lens, and a $1000 premium for the 5D/M III vs MII).
As an owner of an aging 400D with a small set of Canon lenses looking for the next thing — I’m conflicted.
If you got a Nikon D800, you wouldn’t even need the teleconverter thanks to the higher pixel density and in-camera crop options.
I have way too much Canon gear…
I am also an owner of a Canon 400D like TimB and I recently purchased this Tamron lens http://photo.net/equipment/tamron/70-200vc and have been pleased. I have rented the Canon branded 70-200 f/2.8 several times over the past few years for soccer and softball and have always been happy with those images. When I went to buy one this year, the combination of the high price of the Canon and the high critcal praise for $1000 less Tamron drove me to my decision, and so far, I have been quite happy with the Tamron lens. …Now I just need a better sports event camera body, with faster focusing, better light meter, higher ISO… Maybe the Canon 60D?
“Soccer mom” lens, huh? You made my day 🙂
As an enthusiast I do occasionally see other enthusiasts roaming the city streets lugging around a DSLR with a 70-200/2.8 or other lens of comparable price, weight and size. The friends who bought such a lens praise the colors it produces (!). They *never* print or if they do they print 4×6″. I have no idea what they actually mean by “color”. Perhaps it’s a combination of good contrast, no lens flare, no chromatic aberations etc, which, evidently, are way above what they got with their cheap point and shoot cameras, before learning of better alternatives, from DPReview.
In any case, I have come to the conclusion that this type of lens is the equivalent of the Louis Vuitton handbag for this type of (male) enthusiasts. Nothing more than a status symbol …
George: If you want a picture taken at 400 or 600mm to look as good as one taken with a 50mm prime lens ($100-$350) there will be a price to pay! Check out http://photo.net/equipment/canon/600-is for example. That lens is monstrously heavy and expensive but I don’t know of a cheap substitute that would yield comparable images. My favorite of the pictures on that page might be
http://philip.greenspun.com/images/pcd4101/corkscrew-sanctuary-79
where the bird was kind enough to stay at a constant distance from the focal plane!