J
ust when I thought there couldn’t possibly be any more revolutionary breakthroughs in photography, Canon announced new telephoto lenses that change wildlife and bird photography significantly.
For wildlife and birds, these expensive lenses produced the best results in terms of sharpness, speed of autofocus, and contrast. Even if money was not the inhibiting factor, the weight and volume of these monster lenses prevented many people from buying them.
In the past, when I was asked by clients or subscribers to this eMagazine to recommend a long lens, it was very difficult. The typical Canon or Nikon 500mm or 600mm lenses with an f/4 maximum aperture were very expensive, very heavy, and very large. Many people can’t afford a lens in the $10,000 to $13,000 range.
At the other end of the spectrum, inexpensive telephotos were not as sharp as the expensive glass, especially at the edges, and they were typically quite slow. At full extension, a low-priced long lens would be in the f/6.3 or f/7.1 range. When we were all shooting film and 400 ISO was considered ‘fast film’, the small maximum
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