No, this gained’t be a traditional in-depth evaluation like those you’re used to seeing on Pictures Life. I spent too little time with each the Canon RF 200-800mm lens and the Canon EOS R7 for that. The truth is, I solely used this combo for just a few days throughout which my ordinary 500mm f/4 instantly “fell unwell.” Earlier than it spontaneously recovered after just a few days of bedrest (how, it stays an entire thriller to me), some mates lent me their backup gear.
And that’s how I ended up capturing with an APS-C digital camera and the slowest lens I’ve ever examined. Is this mix even usable within the darkness of the tropical cloud forest? This text will discover the reply to that query.
After I realized that my trusty f/4 telephoto lens was now not working, I mentally ready myself for the truth that my photograph shoot in Ecuador was over. Listening to that the loaner lens maxed out at f/9 on the lengthy finish didn’t precisely carry my spirits, particularly after I wasn’t even utilizing it on full-frame.
However then I assumed: alternatives like this don’t come usually. Below regular circumstances, I’d by no means convey such a sluggish lens into the tropical mountain forests. So I made a decision to shift my mindset and stored capturing.
Noise, Dynamic Vary, and Movement Blur
The wide-open maw of a quick aperture prime lens is sort of a photon magnet, greedily gobbling up each scrap of sunshine that occurs to cross by. This allows you to shoot at comfortably quick shutter speeds or low ISO values — ideally each. The identical merely can’t be mentioned of an f/9 lens. (For fundamental details about the connection between aperture, shutter velocity, and ISO, I like to recommend our article right here.)
When utilizing the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9, it was essential to make some compromises. Elevating the ISO was my first alternative as a result of you may at all times fight noise to some extent. However there’s additionally a lower in dynamic vary, and a normal dullness of colours at excessive ISO. Typically I discovered myself pushing the opposite variable, shutter velocity, as an alternative — however just for very nonetheless and affected person birds like owls, nightjars, or potoos.
Forests, particularly tropical ones, are notoriously darkish. About 92% of daylight will get absorbed by the cover above, leaving little or no for us photographers to work with. If most of what little stays is stolen by a slim aperture, the ensuing ISO and shutter velocity values don’t give a lot trigger for cheer. ISO 32,000 and 1/50s are actually absolutely the edge, in my view. (For comparability, an aperture of f/4 would have allowed me to make use of a way more cheap ISO 6400 on the similar shutter velocity.)
At such excessive ISO values, you must anticipate lots of noise. Much more so with a digital camera geared up with a high-resolution 32.5MP APS-C sensor. Nonetheless, after denoising in DxO Pure RAW and subsequent processing in Seize One, I discovered the ensuing images to be fairly usable. Possibly I didn’t have to lament my lacking 500mm f/4 an excessive amount of in any case!
Thankfully, the place there isn’t a mild, there’s usually minimal distinction. So I didn’t run into any severe points with the digital camera’s dynamic vary. The “Highlights” and “Shadows” sliders had sufficient room to work their magic, with the potential exception of sky peeking by the leaves. However that’s regular even at low ISO values and completely forgivable.
With movement blur, nevertheless, it’s a distinct story. The slim aperture pushes you to the bounds of shutter speeds, the place you may solely hope that your topic will stay as nonetheless as a sphinx. That’s hardly a recipe for motion pictures. I see this as the most important sensible limitation of sluggish aperture lenses like this one. Except, in fact, you’re taking it as a inventive problem and dive into the world of intentional digital camera motion pictures, like Jiří Hřebíček does.
After I needed to {photograph} transferring topics with this lens, I wanted to exit into the open slightly bit and keep away from the darkness of the dense cloud forest. It wasn’t inconceivable to get some bird-in-flight images as soon as I did that.
Autofocus
On one hand, unique prime lenses usually come geared up with stronger and extra highly effective focusing motors. Nevertheless, these motors normally must push round bigger, heavier glass components. The variations in focusing velocity in actual life aren’t that vital, and generally even favor a less expensive lens. The RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 centered a lot quick for my scenario.
What I used to be extra involved about wasn’t velocity, however reliability — particularly how reliable autofocus can be when restricted by a slim aperture and thus little or no mild. In darkish forests or on the edges of the day, cameras can generally battle, even at f/4 or f/2.8. So what occurs at f/9? Would animal eye detection nonetheless work?
To my nice shock, the AF efficiency didn’t undergo almost as a lot as I had feared. So long as the topic stayed moderately nonetheless (ideally fully nonetheless), the digital camera was capable of detect the attention even within the gloomy forest shadows. And in spots the place the cover opened up and allowed slightly extra mild to filter by, autofocus labored reliably even with extra agile topics. It appeared as if the larger depth of discipline at f/9 made it simpler to seek out the topic within the viewfinder, each for the digital camera and for me.
Bokeh High quality and Depth of Discipline
Personally, I like my photographs to really feel “tidy.” That doesn’t imply the background at all times needs to be changed into a creamy pea soup with no hint of environmental context. However within the messy, chaotic dysfunction of a tropical forest, it’s usually useful to suppress visible distractions by pushing them outdoors the depth of discipline. And aperture dimension performs a significant position in figuring out simply how deep that discipline is.
That mentioned, the impact shouldn’t be as main as photographers generally suppose. Take a look at my article Depth of Discipline in Wildlife Pictures to see the sensible variations of capturing at totally different aperture values. With the appropriate approach, even an f/9 lens can result in creamy backgrounds… proper? Nicely, let’s see how the 200-800mm f/6.3-9 performs.
To sum up, the Canon RF 200-800mm’s out-of-focus rendering isn’t something to jot down residence about, however that doesn’t imply the images could have unhealthy bokeh. In the event you can place your topic towards the appropriate background, you will get lovely blur in your images with this lens. You simply have to suppose extra in regards to the character of the background and the distances between the digital camera, topic, and background. Settle for that generally you simply gained’t be capable to determine it out. And remember that bokeh is much less about your lens, extra about you.
Sharpness
Despite the fact that zoom lenses have come a great distance in recent times, the previous fact nonetheless holds — a high quality prime will virtually at all times outperform a zoom when it comes to sharpness. Most fashionable zooms ship completely satisfactory decision for normal use. Nonetheless, in the event you’re printing actually giant or cropping closely, high-quality element might begin to blur and texture might start to smear. So how will this four-times telephoto zoom carry out below shut scrutiny?
In the event you handle to keep away from the pitfalls of movement blur, the Canon RF 200-800mm is able to rendering a substantial amount of element. I don’t have goal values from our lab, however I’d be actually to see how this lens compares to equally priced telephoto zooms, such because the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR, Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS, or Fujifilm XF 150-600mm f/5.6-8 R LM OIS WR. Probably, it can measure slightly worse, however it’s nonetheless effectively inside the vary I’d name “sharp.”
These are 100% crops of among the images all through this text. All of them look good and crispy to me, and remember that these are cropped from a 33 megapixel APS-C digital camera, so the pixel dimension is already very small:
Conclusion
In the event you’re a Canon shooter with a ardour for wildlife pictures, you mainly have two paths relating to lenses. Both you select the uncompromising path of super-fast, but additionally super-expensive and huge unique telephoto lenses, otherwise you go for one of many severely sluggish lenses. The one trace of a center floor is the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM and, someday sooner or later, maybe the Canon RF 200-500mm f/5.6L IS USM (if the rumors show to be true).
However as I discovered within the discipline, even the standard f/9 on the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM is a lot for many conditions. So long as you’re not capturing within the darkest depths of the forest — the place you’ll inevitably run into points with excessive ISO, sluggish shutter speeds, and movement blur — this lens can ship spectacular attain (particularly on an APS-C physique) and completely respectable picture high quality. Even below the towering cover of a rainforest, it’s not completely out of its depth. It simply asks you to decelerate and hunt down extra static topics. For $2,099, that looks as if a good commerce.
I imagine that a lot of you could have way more in depth expertise with this lens, or with different lenses with a most aperture of round f/8 or much less. I’d love to listen to your ideas and discipline expertise within the feedback. I want you good mild, regardless of how small the aperture it passes by.