Canon RF 200-800mm IS USM (4 Viewers)

[Barred Wobbler]

My lens arrived yesterday afternoon, too late to give it a run out, but I was out for a couple of hours along the river in poor light this morning to give it a test. The sun was promising to come out, plenty of blue sky where I wasn't, but it was one of those days, where the sun stayed stubbornly behind the edge of a heavy cloud bank.

All shots on my R7, so that crop body was giving the equivalent of 1280mm at full reach.

My first impression of the lens is that it's a little bit bigger than I was anticipating. I knew beforehand that it is bigger than the 100-500, but there's more of it than I'd expected. Saying that, the size difference doesn't translate into weight and it's easy to handle.

It's not the best lens in the world at full extension for tracking flying subjects, especially quick ones, but what 800mm lens, especially on a crop body, would be? It handled many of them well, though. Gulls, mallard, wigeon, oystercatcher and a flying heron were just fine.

The flying Mallard here is a heavy crop, but the Heron shots, the Goosanders, the Turnstone and the second Redshank (group shot) are all completely uncropped. Distance to the herons and the redshank group on the opposite side of the river was about 90m.

It's a keeper.

 

[AlphaFan]

Congrats to those who’ve received their lenses. A full 3 months and counting since my original order and still waiting. At this point I’m anticipating some dealers to begin getting it in stock here in the USA prior to receiving mine. If that happens I’ll just order it and cancel my preorder. Going forward I’m going to plan on at least a 3 month wait on Canon preorders. It will be interesting to note the time lag between preorder fulfillments and dealers just receiving it widely in-stock and ready for purchase.

The good news is those who’ve received the RF 200-800 appear to be happy with them.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Update on the new lens.

Out again today with the R7 for a couple of shore larks that have been loitering between a nearby golf course and the adjacent sea, then on to North Shields at the mouth of the Tyne for an Iceland Gull, that has taken up temporary residence.

The forecast was overcast all day, so poor light, and it was generally accurate, although the cloud did thin on places for a short while and the sun threatened to break out before darker cloud rolled in for the afternoon.

With the twite and linnets in particular, in dull light the R7/200-800 combo struggled (as I've seen reported elsewhere) to firstly find the bird, and then to hold onto it once it had found it, even at close range, of 15 yards or so the focus frond the contrasty blades of grass well in front to the target more attractive than the drab brown bird. But when it was on the target, even at longish range, the results were good.

I found that the best technique for the nearby gulls in flight was to pull the zoom back to about 400-500mm to give me an easier time tracking them. I forgot to do this with the Black-back and I was still at 800mm as it swept by. I got lucky with one image, although I had to crop it to make it look as if the upper wing being clipped was intentional, rather than a cock-up.

I've not tried the 200-800 with the R5 yet, but I imagine it'll be easier to use with that. I don't blame the lens for the struggles at times today, just the price to pay for a crop sensor as a trade-off for more reach.

 

[Fowl Mouth]

Update on the new lens.

Out again today with the R7 for a couple of shore larks that have been loitering between a nearby golf course and the adjacent sea, then on to North Shields at the mouth of the Tyne for an Iceland Gull, that has taken up temporary residence.

The forecast was overcast all day, so poor light, and it was generally accurate, although the cloud did thin on places for a short while and the sun threatened to break out before darker cloud rolled in for the afternoon.

With the twite and linnets in particular, in dull light the R7/200-800 combo struggled (as I've seen reported elsewhere) to firstly find the bird, and then to hold onto it once it had found it, even at close range, of 15 yards or so the focus frond the contrasty blades of grass well in front to the target more attractive than the drab brown bird. But when it was on the target, even at longish range, the results were good.

I found that the best technique for the nearby gulls in flight was to pull the zoom back to about 400-500mm to give me an easier time tracking them. I forgot to do this with the Black-back and I was still at 800mm as it swept by. I got lucky with one image, although I had to crop it to make it look as if the upper wing being clipped was intentional, rather than a cock-up.

I've not tried the 200-800 with the R5 yet, but I imagine it'll be easier to use with that. I don't blame the lens for the struggles at times today, just the price to pay for a crop sensor as a trade-off for more reach.

Great series. Particularly like that gull in front of the hanging tires. Are any of these shots wide open?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Great series. Particularly like that gull in front of the hanging tires. Are any of these shots wide open?

Thanks. All of them are wide open, at various focal lengths. I was mistaken when I posted last night that the black bach was at 800mm because I'd forgotten to pull the zoom back. It was so close I just assumed that when I saw the photo. Details of each of the shots are below, I think all are cropped, some heavily, but that herring gull was just slightly cropped for composition with the old tyre hanging from the quay.

I's a similar grey morning today, forecast to brighten up this afternoon, so I'm thinking of going back to the Fish Quay to give the lens a test with the R5.

Black Back: F8, 1/2000, ISO2000, 500mm
Grey Seal (in gloom of fish dock): F9, 1/2000, ISO 6400, 800mm
Herring Gull: F8 1/2500, ISO3200, 455mm
Iceland Gull: F9, 1/2500, ISO3200, 481mm
Linnet: F9, 1/2000, ISO25000, 549mm (accidentally compressed the lens while I was sitting waiting for action)
Skylark: F9,1/1600 (slightly overexposed), ISO4000, 800mm
Shore Lark: F9, 1/1600, ISO4000, 800mm
Twite: F9, 1/2500, ISO1600, 800mm.

All shots opened in DxO Pure Raw and edited in Photoshop Elements 22. No further noise reduction in PSE.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

The performance with the R5 today convinced me that I need to start using my R5 for bird photography again, now that I've got the reach of the 200-800 to fasten in front of it, rather than the restriction of the 100-500. This lens loves the R5. Lovely clean images, no need to pull back the zoom, and it found focus on difficult subjects much better than the R7 did, such as a cormorant taking off from the water in the dark reflection of the quay, something you should hope would be the case, given that it's 3 times the price.

I'll post some images tomorrow, once I've had time to sort them out.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Shots from yesterday's jaunt to North Shields in a cold wind, putting the lens through its paces with my R5 for the first time. The light was better than the forecast suggested it would be in the morning, and over the 4 hours-plus I was there I had less cloud than I was expecting. There were still some interesting situations that put the focus system to the test, such as the cormorant and young herring gulls against a dark background.

That Turnstone shot was the first of a burst of three as the bird came in over the river towards me. It was the only one of the burst that was any use.The other two were just smudges, but I was so dazzled by the low sun coming into my eye past the edge of the eyepiece, I couldn't see anything that was happening in the viewfinder and I can't even say with any certainty if my thumb was still pressing the focus button or not.

That herring gull shot at the end, labelled '6663', is an interesting bird. I'm not a fan of gulls and their infinite variations, but a friend who was with me on Tuesday had some photos of it amongst his shots from that day. He's a real gull fan, and he noticed the white/grey on the outer primaries extending well into the black and thought it might be the Scandinavian race 'argentatus'. I looked out for it yesterday and got a bunch of shots as it turned up late on, coming for scraps from some recently-arrived fishing boats. He told me last night that he'd posted his pics from Tuesday onto a gull site and somebody had suggested it might be an American Herring Gull. I wouldn't know one from an ostrich, so if any gull experts read this, I'd be grateful for their input.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Some non-wildlife shots from yesterday, close range (200mm) and full zoom (aircraft and FB 'Ivy May'. That Emirates Boeing 777 coming into Newcastle from Dubai was 3 km distant at 4,000 feet and 183 knots, according to Flight Radar, but the registration A6-ENY can be clearly read, even on this image compressed to 2048 pixels for the web.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

3 shots with the R7 of a probable Black-bellied Dipper in atrocious light yesterday, followed by 3 with the R5. A major rarity here. Potentially a 4th for the county. A couple of red-throated divers with the R7 on the way home.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Hand-held video from yesterday with the 200-800 at 800mm zoom. R7 for the slo-mo and R5 for the vid clips after that.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Out again with the R7 and 200-800 today, photographing Purple Sandpipers feeding on rocks at close range.

The light was changeable, from sun to thickish cloud, but even when a bird was standing still, especially in the cloudy spells, the camera struggled at times to play with the lens, either failing to find the bird entirely, even when standing proud at 15m, against a background of sky reflected in a still rock pool. If it did find the bird's eye, it would often lose it again, sometimes before the shot was taken. When it worked, it worked well, but it was frustrating at times, compared to the same body on my 100-500. Maybe it was partly to do with the lack of contrast on the sandpipers' faces that it sometimes preferred bladder wrack or barnacles, because it seemed to have no trouble with a juvenile knot or some oystercatchers. ISOs weren't particularly high, around 2500-ish plus or minus.

The EXIF files on these shots say that the Sandpipers ranged from 14-17m, and the Oystercatcher was 32m from the camera. ISOs; 3200, 2000, 1250, 2500 and 2000 respectively.

I'll be taking the R5 next time out, in a few days, maybe, to see how it does in comparison. It's seemed better with the lens than the R7 so far.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Last night with the R7, RF200-800 and for the first time, I put the 1.4x converter on the back of the lens, so effective focal length 1,792mm. Not much cropping done. The original edit on which this reduced image is based was 4882 pixels along the width, against 6982, 70% of the original shot's linear dimension.

 

[Clive Watson]

I was wondering about this. It'd be interesting to see how it performs on birds at 600-800mm + 1.4x.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I was wondering about this. It'd be interesting to see how it performs on birds at 600-800mm + 1.4x.

I can't see it being great with the R7. I was out this morning in good light, but partial shade from some alders, etc and I tried to photograph a male bullfinch on the shady path about 15m in front of me. The R7 really struggled, missing the bird and picking up grass just beyond it, although another bullfinch further away in good light was found OK. (Edit - see my comment below on how I've been using the wrong focus setting!)

I switched the lens to my R5. It picked up this siskin amongst twigs against the light no problem. I might give the R5 a go with the converter just for a bit of daftness, but I can't see it being worthwhile with the R7.

I've left both of these shots completely uncropped for comparison. Bullfinch R7, Siskin R5.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Mea Culpa.

Oh, dear!

I might have been unjust to my R7 and how it's been coping with the 200-800. I've said it's been struggling a bit and I got to thinking it didn't seem that bad a couple of weeks ago when I first got the lens. I've just checked my settings and I found that somehow, during the past couple of weeks the autofocus 'subject to detect' preference somehow has been changed from 'Animals' to 'None'. 'Animals' has been my default since I got the R7, so it's a bit of a mystery how it changed.

Perhaps this is why it struggled so much on its past couple of outings. I'll need to give it a run out, with the right settings in the next couple of days.

 

[Clive Watson]

I was thinking of what it would be like more for things like terns on a beach or divers on the sea rather than Bullfinches and Siskins. If it doesn't work well with the converter then it won't really offer much of an advantage over the 100-500 + 1.4xTC but if you can get good shots at 1,792mm? Tempting.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I was thinking of what it would be like more for things like terns on a beach or divers on the sea rather than Bullfinches and Siskins. If it doesn't work well with the converter then it won't really offer much of an advantage over the 100-500 + 1.4xTC but if you can get good shots at 1,792mm? Tempting.

I would ignore almost all of that post No 74 of mine above. I'd messed up the camera settings somehow in the past few days, so what I said there about the R7 doesn't count. Bullfinches and siskins aren't my normal fare anyway, they were just a couple of random shots I took yesterday while I was inland, before and after I plugged the R5 on the back. I only got a few birds on the day, because adders were my target subject yesterday, using a 70-200 lens and the R5.

Seabirds and waders are more like my normal subjects, and I might be getting out over the next few days, weather and other factors permitting, to test the kit now that I've put my camera settings right again.

I've got the 100-500 and to be honest, I'm not a fan of the converter, not for quality, but for the faff involved. I also think that the 100-500 plus the converter isn't as good at birds in flight, based on limited use in Spain at last autumn's migration time, when I'd been photographing waders with the telecon fitted and an osprey came over unexpectedly. Got good shots, but I felt that they'd have been better, and there'd have been more of them if I'd not had the converter on.

I'll be very surprised if the 200-800 on its own isn't better than the 100-500+1.4, but I'll not be getting rid of the 100-500. They both have their place.

 

[Clive Watson]

Thanks. So far I've just got the R7 and 100-500 and I'm liking it but obviously the area where it is a bit lacking is reach. Just wondering how would be best to solve that problem...

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I'd say that the R7+200-800+1.4x (without using it for birds yet) would have a very limited application. Handy for shots of the Moon, or for giving better, (but still not very good) shots of Jupiter and its Galilean moons (as below), but I'm not expecting great results with things that are alive.

At that sort of focal length, the law of diminishing returns takes over.You come up against the problems of physics; light scattering in the air from dust and moisture, differential refraction cause by temperature variation (usually incorrectly termed 'heat haze' incorrect because it's not a haze - it's unpredictable bending of light - not the same thing as haze), etc. There are also handling and target location problems. It's like looking through a drinking straw and even finding the target is a pain.

I think the R7 and the 100-500 is a really good combination, as you say it could be a little better at times, but for some targets, birds in flight, for instance, it's at about the limit of usefulness in my opinion. Beyond 500mm on a crop body is a pain when it comes to target tracking. I've had some success - my Spanish osprey that I mentioned, and last September's red-footed falcon in Northumberland, for instance, but I often found myself zooming back from the full 700mm just to track the bird. Some shots were fine at 700mm, but some were missed. The photo below was one of the many hits.

Similarly with the 200-800 on the R7. it looks like a great combo, but as I found at North Shields a couple of weeks ago, it's hard to track flying gulls in a dock at 800mm on a crop body without the wings disappearing off the top or sides, supposing you can keep on the bird long enough to actually press the shutter and I found it was better to zoom back to 400 or 500mm and crop in post for those shots. Next day with the R5 at 800mm it was OK.

All in all, I don't think there'll be many situations where I'd want to be using a crop body and teleconverter with this lens. Too much reach can be worse than just too little, and the lens on the crop body is good on its own.

Others may differ in their opinion, but that just mine.

 

[Clive Watson]

Yes I agree with all you say here. Heat haze (to use what is clearly the incorrect term) is an absolute scourge.

I'm happy with the 100-500 for flight shots, I wouldn't really be looking at the 200-800 for that, just for the extra reach at the 600-800mm end for stationary birds. Maybe I should just get the 1.4x to enable me to shoot at 700mm when required and leave it at that.