Now the experiences with the Canon RF 200-800mm f6.3-9 IS USM. I have to say I was pretty impressed after the first shots. If the camera could catch the bird, the reliabiltity of tracking the eyes with the autofocus was excellent. There the Canon EOS R5 Mark II could beat it predecessor. Image quality, autofocus and image stabilization were very good and in my opinion on par with an L-series lens. But the fairly small aperture can make it quite hard to catch dark bodies against a dark blue water and definitely requires higher ISO values. But I guess that’s the price you pay for a relatively light and inexpensive lens with a focal length of 800mm, which you do not need in these circumstances. As I said, I was accustomed to the a focal length of 400mm of my Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM. But with the RF 200-800mm f6.3-9 IS USM a focal length of not much more but 200mm turned out to be the focal length used most times. A really new experience. But with longer focal length I often could not find the upcoming birds. And trying to start – lets say with a focal lenght of 400mm or 500mm – and correct to a focal length of 200mm with the birds coming closer, was very tricky. For a quick turn on the focal lenght ring, the zoom lens has a center of gravity that is too far forward.
What was particularly annoying was that the focal length range moved towards 800mm due to gravity during a break in photography (with the camera hanging from the right hand), so that before the next shoot it had to be reset to 200mm again and again or the lens had to be pressed gently against the edge of the boat so that the focal length range moved back towards the original focal length. Another thing I really didn’t like was the manual focus ring, which also functions as a control ring, which was a bit hard to use (both in terms of position and resistance).
Canon has given the lens protection against dust and splash water. This obviously makes sense for the intended target group and was perfect for a off-shore day out on the Atlantic.
Unfortunately, the lens’ sharpness deteriorates noticeably at the long end. Ok, this was not an issue on the sea as I used a focal length of not much more but 200mm for reasons written above. And maybe, you can’t expect maximum quality from a zoom, but other zooms seem visibly sharper and have more contrast at e.g. 600mm, especially in the center of the image, than the Canon at 500mm and even more so at 800mm.
In the consequence Canon RF200-800 is suitable for wildlife photography but it is not the ultimate tool for quick action e.g. for the photography of pelagic birds out on a rocking boat.
But an Albatross sailing the seas, a dynamic Shearwater and an agile Petrel are real challenges anyway. Pelagic bird photographing is quite a difficult task especially in a rocking, heaving boat, salt spray and fast moving agile targets and you have a most challenging undertaking. To take the best out of a flyby of a Albatros, Shearwater or Petrel take the best equipment, you can get.
If you really want to seek out new destinations, try the challenge of seeing all the worlds seabirds. This quest will require you to visit many of the worlds most remote and rugged land and seascapes. From the Galapagos to the Bismark Archipelago, from Tristan da Cuhna to Amsterdam Island, from Monterey to the Aleutians, from Cape Town to Antarctica and on to Mauritius, Hatteras, Cape Verde Islands, Madeira and the Canaries. Spots on a map which are known to few -visited by still fewer. I am hoping the galleries on bird-lens.com of seabird photography off-shore Cape Town/ South Africa, Hatteras/ North Carolina, The Scillies/ England, Monterey/ California will serve as a resource for seabirders. With a focus to birds occurring in the western palearctic I plan to provide as many pictures demonstrating diagnostic details and individual variation in as many seabird species as possible. An example is the Cory’s Shearwater, the image of the blog. Enjoy!
To cope with the growing demand for top shots of the rarer species of the Palearctic Bird-Lens is keen to enrich the range of pictures of birds you can find in the western palearctic. Trips to remote places like this one to capture images of rare birds of western palearctic were very successful. The nice images of the blog is only a first impression, what you will find in the gallery in the “Picture Shop“. Just give a notice if you need a picture of a bird which is not online.