Tamron 150-600mm f/6.3

[Colin500]

I'd have to say the Tamron is likely more targeted at the 70D, 60D, and Rebel crowd. As you go up the class of camera scale most folks will opt for higher grade lenses. It's horses for courses as they say. Some 5D users may pick it, but I would expect there to be fewer of them that do. I can't imagine seeing a modern 1D with this lens.

Well, I'm considering one for my 1DX :-)

Has anybody already got one???

[Sean Setters]

TDP is scheduled to get one of B&H's first shipments. But we don't have ours yet. :-(

[peety3]

Well, I'm considering one for my 1DX :-)

I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for", and therefore I'm not considering one for my 1DXes. I'll pay the Canon premium (or the Zeiss premium, though not a "factor" in this particular range) and be a brand snob.

[Sean Setters]

I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for", and therefore I'm not considering one for my 1DXes. I'll pay the Canon premium (or the Zeiss premium, though not a "factor" in this particular range) and be a brand snob.

Indeed, you do get what you pay for most of the time. However, there are instances where the lower cost item makes more sense than the higher priced one.

For example, I picked up a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens for use with my 5D III instead of picking up the Canon 14mm f/2.8 L II USM. Cost difference right now - $399.00 vs $2,234.00. In fact, I got the Rokinon while it was on sale, so I didn't even pay that much.

Why did I buy the Rokinon? Well, because I intended on only using the wide-angle lens for tripod mounted panoramas. And in that case, automatic aperture control and AF are unnecessary features to me. Also, while the Canon is much better wide open, both lenses are pretty much the same at f/8 - and that's exactly where I want to be (or narrower) when using my wide angle lens for panoramas.

The only halfway important differentiator for me was distortion. In that aspect, the Canon beats the pants off the Rokinon lens. That said, software can correct both lenses' distortion fairly well. In fact, I was surprised just how well my software was able to correct the Rokinon's distortion.

Therefore, it just didn't make sense to purchase the more expensive Canon lens. True, you may get what you pay for - but sometimes you don't need the incremental benefits that the more expensive lens has to offer. And then again, sometimes you do.

:-)

[Colin500]

I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for", and therefore I'm not considering one for my 1DXes. I'll pay the Canon premium (or the Zeiss premium, though not a "factor" in this particular range) and be a brand snob.

Super-tele is not one of my main use cases, in fact I haven't got anything beyond 200mm, so for me it's just a cheap possibility to play around with some focal lengths that are not my primary (or even secondary) interest... Otherwise I'm quite snobbish, too, all my AF lenses are Canon :-)

[Colin500]

Therefore, it just didn't make sense to purchase the more expensive Canon lens. True, you may get what you pay for - but sometimes you don't need the incremental benefits that the more expensive lens has to offer. And then again, sometimes you do.

Well said.

Btw, I have both the nifty fifty and the 50L, and use both, on a 1DX, depending on what's going on. (With the nifty fifty I can laugh it off when a kid happens to touch the lens.)

And I have been thinking about the Rokinon 14mm for a long time, but given that 35mm feels wide to me I don't want to invest in an expensive UWA before I'm sure it'll be of use.

[Sean Setters]

And don't get me wrong, I love my Canon lenses. But the stigma of 3rd party lenses being inferior is slowly being eroded. Look at what Sigma has done with their Global Vision Art lenses. And let's not forget, Zeiss is a third-party lens maker - and it's difficult to question the quality of their lenses.

In today's lens market it makes less sense to limit your choices to only OEM lenses.

[neuroanatomist]

And don't get me wrong, I love my Canon lenses. But the stigma of 3rd party lenses being inferior is slowly being eroded. Look at what Sigma has done with their Global Vision Art lenses. And let's not forget, Zeiss is a third-party lens maker - and it's difficult to question the quality of their lenses.

In today's lens market it makes less sense to limit your choices to only OEM lenses.

The fly in that ointment is future compatibility, particularly with AF systems. Doesn't matter for Zeiss, of course, and Sigma's Dock is a great solution. But what about Tamron and Tokina? Tamron was impacted not too long ago, several of their lenses including the popular 17-50/2.8 were found to activate the 8 off-center cross-type AF points of the 40D/50D/60D/7D as single-orientation lines instead of crosses. I don't know if that issue also affects the subsequent bodies that inherited those AF systems (70D/T4i/T5i). Canon acknowledged the problem, which affected some really old Canon lenses from which Tamron 'borrowed' the LensID code, but they didn't say they fixed it, AFAIK. They may not have seen a need, certainly not for Tamron's benefit.

[Sean Setters]

The fly in that ointment is future compatibility, particularly with AF systems. Doesn't matter for Zeiss, of course, and Sigma's Dock is a great solution. But what about Tamron and Tokina? Tamron was impacted not too long ago, several of their lenses including the popular 17-50/2.8 were found to activate the 8 off-center cross-type AF points of the 40D/50D/60D/7D as single-orientation lines instead of crosses. I don't know if that issue also affects the subsequent bodies that inherited those AF systems (70D/T4i/T5i). Canon acknowledged the problem, which affected some really old Canon lenses from which Tamron 'borrowed' the LensID code, but they didn't say they fixed it, AFAIK. They may not have seen a need, certainly not for Tamron's benefit.

True, there are still concerns regarding the purchase of specific third-party lenses. However, Sigma's USB Dock is a huge step in the right direction. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tamron jumping on that bandwagon in the future.

[neuroanatomist]

True, there are still concerns regarding the purchase of specific third-party lenses. However, Sigma's USB Dock is a huge step in the right direction. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tamron jumping on that bandwagon in the future.

That would be great! Is the Sigma Dock compatible with lenses released before the Dock itself?