500mm F/4L II vs 600mm F/4L II

[Richard Lane]

That's a tremendous amount of equipment to carry around. With all due respect, you must be a beast!

What type of backpack do you use, a Honda Accord?

Rich

[FastGass]

I use a manual focus Minolta MD 600mm f/6.3 and the best way for me is to focus in the viewfinder with a split prism focus screen. I have had this lens for a while and am fairly proficient at manual focusing and don't miss that many shots. But it would sure be nice to have AF!

Hope this helps,
John.

[Vern]

I'm renting the Canon 600mm f4 IS II for the weekend. Wanted to compare portability and performance to the 500mm f4 IS II I took to the beach two weeks ago. I won't get to do as many BIF shots, but will try some hummingbirds w teleflash (better beamer) plus do some hiking in local woods along streams. If I get lucky the kingfishers and herons will cooperate. As it will be approaching 100 F and super humid, especially at dawn when I will start, this will be a good test of my resolve to tote this thing around (tripod or monopod...? tough choice for such a hike - probably the gitzo w RRS full gimbal - more cumbersome to set-up but so much better once in place).

Also - I just got my new 5DMKIII so I can test out the AF and ISO with this big lens under field conditions. I hope this experience will help me decide about which of the supertele's to get and whether adding a 7D for the crop factor would be good for my kit (guess I could have rented that too....).

Thanks for all the feedback from the regulars - I'll post a short report next week.

btw Rich - backpack = Dana Design which fits me great (6'3") - just need the antigravity option as I am less 'beasty' w each passing year.

[Vern]

Well, after renting both the 500 and 600mm f4 IS II's, I've decided that the 600 is the best choice for me. It is significantly heavier (guess I needed to experience the version I to think of it as 'light'), but still portable enough to carry on a 5 mile walk with tripod and gimbal head - though my shoulder is a little sore. What really sold me was the performance with the 1.4X III teleconverter and my 5DMKIII shooting hummingbirds in flight. I was definitely the weak link in capturing these shots, but after only two days of practice was able to get quite few keepers (as attached). The AF worked so much better than my 5DMKII and the lens with the 1.4 has great IQ and contrast. I used a 580EX flash with the better beamer tele adapter in Av mode at f5.6 and ISO 1600 for the pic I uploaded.

[Richard Lane]

Hi Vern,

Good to hear from you again, thanks for reporting back! Glad you're enjoying the 5DIII. That's a long hike with all of that equipment. I was sore just from walking from the parking lot to the air-show. I better start hitting the gym again!

That hummingbird shot looks like a a keeper, nice work. You should check out Bob Williams' HB thread. I'm glad to hear that you were able to come up with a decision that works for you. It sounds like renting turned out to be a worthwhile investment for you. I'm still unsure of what I'm going to do. Right know I have the 300mm f/2.8 plus 1.4X and 2X. I was originally leaning towards the 400 or 500mm because of the crop factor of the 7D and/or MKIV, but now I just picked up a 1DX this weekend, so know I'm leaning towards the 500 or 600mm again. Yesterday, I was walking around taking some shots with the bare 300mm, then with 1.4X and 2X, to see what range works best for me with the FF body.

Rich

[Vern]

Hi Richard,
The 600 + 1.4X (840) on the 5DMKIII was just about perfect for hummingbirds. I was shooting them from around 20', so a decent sized image in the frame but still enough field of view to track them with a little success and I'll get better at this part. I will be trying the same location with my 300 2.8 II w the 2X tele III this weekend (the 600 is on order now). If I can get a little closer, I'll have a comparable field of view. Shooting this lens combo w the 5DMKII was not very successful - the AF just wasn't up to it. My experience with the IQ of the 300 + 2X has been great and the close focusing is very cool if you can work from a blind etc... Having both the 300 and 600 is a luxury, but I can backpack w the 300 and converters while the 600 will be great for more singular photo activities. I'll continue to debate adding a 7D to really push the apparent focal length (could just about have bought one for the price of the two rentals...).
Thanks for the suggestion about Bob's HB thread - I'll give it a look. My shots this w/e were all natural in our perenial garden, but we have feeders around the house where I could place a photogenic bait flower and stage a multi-flash shot to better freeze wing motion. Always a new challenge.
Cheers