Quote Originally Posted by Mickw View Post
As for buying thew new 500 which is a bit lighter? It is, but i wont notice any differance in quality at A3 printing.

Mick
I don't know that this would be a true statement for me, you might not notice the difference but I am sure I would. The new 500mm charts is promising to be the sharpest lens Canon has ever released. The new coatings that Canon started using about 5 years ago make a noticeable difference, one that I can tell from a lens that has it and one that doesn't. The new 500mm chart with the 2x III is promising to be very usable. The newer lens released in the last few years have shown much improvement on the edges, since Canon is moving to full frame for the body that these lenses are designed I believe it will be noticeable. Last and most important is your ability to crop, you can print at A3 but if you pull a 100 percent crop for the picture the better the IQ that you need.

Last thing is you are making the assumption that the 200-400mm IQ will be good enough. It may be, and I would love to have a zoom to cover this range. The problem is that the 200-400Mm is a phantom. Canon hasn't released dates or even charts on this lens, for all we know they have abandoned it.