Canon 100-500mm Lens - First Impressions ON SAFARI with Janine

hey guys this is janine from pangolin photo safaris and today i will provide you with my first impressions of the canon rf 100 to 500 millimeter lens i just came back from an epic chobi delta kalahari photographic safari on which i was fortunate to test the canon rf lens mounted on a canon r6 and not just that my guest rima also brought her brand new r5 with a 500 to 500 for first trial in africa being a well-traveled wildlife photographer herself it was really fun to discuss the lens potential throughout our safari while we got acquainted with it this video will give you an overview of our first impressions of how this lens handles action-packed wildlife photography from our experience that we gathered throughout the last 12 days starting off in the chobi we get some amazing low-level footage of lions drinking as well as the iconic elephant interaction in the water from the word get go you can see that the full hd 120 frames per second looks way sharper on the elephants which were filmed with the rf100 to 500 millimeter which is partially to blame on the advanced video functionality of the r6 however after shooting the 100 to 500 for a few days rima and i both agree that the lens offers amazing clarity and sharpness if videos like this help you with your photography please do not forget to subscribe to our channel and press the like button here is what rima thinks about the clarity of this lens incredibly sharp incredibly sharp lenses just so the percentage of shots that are tech sharp from this lens is significantly greater than even though one two four hundred is considered a very good lens also on one dx perfect combination but this combination is just unbelievable as far as sharpness so do you think the percentage of shots being sharper also has to do with your r5 on there or um would you um i don't know uh it might because the tracking may be better the especially with the eye eye tracking on the birds so maybe that has to do with it but even just no i would say i think it's probably the lens but because even if you're just on a stationary subject uh the the sharpness is just so much greater if you magnify even to 100 200 percent i can see that even on stationary shots it's sharper after all this positive energy i got curious as rima also traveled with canon's beautiful 600 millimeter fix f4 could the lens potentially take on a prime lens in quality well that depends on your outlook of course you cannot reach the same subject separation and the beautiful bouquet on a shorter lens with an aperture of f 7.1 on 500 millimeters but here are some of the pros it is my favorite lens the 600 and it's also very very sharp lens and of course the bokeh is at f4 is unbelievable uh the lenses the bigger lens is a lot more difficult to handle it's more difficult to weight wise and also finding the subject in the frame or focusing on the subject much much more difficult so the percentage of good shots from that lens is probably significantly lower than from this one which is so much easier to handle i would prefer be softer backgrounds so 7.1 is a little bit too distracting as far as the backgrounds but in some situations it doesn't matter at all if it's action shots or you know real close-ups portraits it doesn't really matter but i do see i mean the images are more pleasant from the 600 f4 i actually had to remind rimmer a few times to fire up her biceps and rather get the shot with the 600 millimeter prime as it was just way too comfortable and easy to pick up the 100 to 500 millimeter when push came to shove but let's be honest this lens wasn't designed to compete with any teleprime lens at all it was canon's way of substituting the well-tested hundred to four hundred millimeter mark ii for the mirrorless world which by the way was a workhorse for many wildlife photographers so my first thought was that the added hundred millimeters an absolute blessing as i felt that the 400 millimeter often falls short on a full-frame sensor at the reduced weight and 100 to 500 millimeter already scores incredibly well however how well does it compare to the good old 100 to 400 millimeter lens after all well the first tummy feeling i had about the 100 to 500 millimeter lens was that i was incredibly sharp in the clarity was outstanding however i really did struggle a lot focusing in low light conditions or matter of fact any backload shots even in the middle of the day i first wanted to blame the r6 however i remembered on my previous tests with the r5 and the r6 i was shooting the 100 to 400 millimeter mark ii with the ef to rf converter and i never ran into these problems as much as on the safari did you also struggle focusing on the hundred to five hundred millimeter lens in low light conditions let me know in the comment section below i was shooting on a single point focus with ai servo however to compare the ultimate quality of the rf100 to 500 to our good old workhorse of the 100 to 400 let's have a look at some of the images that i took and compare them none of these images have been cropped or sharpened additional to the 40 points that adobe lightroom adds to any of the canon cr files anyway when looking at a closer portrait of this drinking kudu ball i actually have to start pixel peeping to see much of a difference between the two lenses however looking very closely i have to admit that i do find more sharpness and details in the rf lens when for instance looking into the small fine hair within the ears of the kudu this difference increases when looking at subjects shot at larger distance as you can see with the cheetah that we found in the delta add another hundred millimeters to the mix and you will find that the quality of detail you find in the rf lens starts seriously outperforming the older ef 100 to 400 millimeter mark ii as a subject is simply closer when zooming in at a hundred percent allowing for more details to show so i was really curious if that was something we could compensate for with a 1.4 times extender following this gorgeous female leopard i had a chance of photographing her both on the 500 to 500 millimeters straight as well as with the 100 to 400 with an added converter on a side note i was shooting the 100 to 400 millimeter on the r6 with the ef to rf converter for the best comparison however i used my 1dx2 for this leopard shot which is comparable in pixel size to the r6 despite shifting the advantage of the focal length to the 100 to 400 millimeter mark ii by an extra 60 millimeter you can clearly see that the extender had a serious impact on image quality giving the rf100 to 500 millimeter a further head start for crispness this is particularly obvious when looking at the whiskers of this gorgeous cat so even in comparison to our trusty old work wars my first impression was that the r 100 to 500 did not just compared to the 100 400 but actually outperformed it from a quality standard however does that really help you if you struggle to find focus in the first place this is something i will have to look deeper into this lens is tech sharp is rimmer mentioned and a lot of fun to play with in combination with one of the new mirrorless camera bodies especially if you make use of the new animal eye tracking which work beautiful on the rf100 to 500 with absolutely no delays when it could pick up on the eye i could never ever get the burns in flight on the 600 by the time i find them in the viewfinder they're long gone and nesting somewhere but uh with this one it's just so easy it's almost like the camera finds the bird for you and focuses on the eye it takes a little bit of practice of course but i've gotten more birds on this trip than i've done in my entire previous years of shooting i didn't even attempt it then most of the time now it's fun i mean you could actually end up with images sharp images nice images if you would like to see what can be achieved with this lens stay tuned till the end and check out my pictures have you guys played with the r100 to 500 yourself but do you consider to buy it let me know in the comment sections below i hope sharing my first experiences with this lens helped you too i hope you have a wonderful day bye bye

Channel: Pangolin Wildlife Photography

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Id: gkWXefRCzgk

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 21 2021