(The mini program has been added here, please go to today's headline client to view)
In early November, I took Canon's new RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM lens (hereinafter referred to as RF100-400) to Urqi Khan to shoot. Urqi Khan is a town belonging to Yakeshi City in Hulunbuir City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is located in the Daxing'anling Forest Area and has very rich wildlife resources, in addition to many resident birds and mammals, there are also some birds from the far north who come here to spend the winter.
Long-tailed forest owl RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM1/400 f/8iso320
To go to the cold north of minus 30 degrees, I have a lot more things to carry than usual, and heavy clothes take up a lot of space, so I also strive to be light in terms of equipment selection. The most surprising thing about this new RF100-400 is that although it is a 4x zoom ratio telephoto lens, it has a small and lightweight body. Its body length is only 164.7 mm, the maximum lens diameter is 79.5 mm, and the weight is only 635 grams, compared with the same focal length of the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM (1570 grams), which weighs only 40% of the "Great White Rabbit". Even with the body of an EOS R5, the weight is only 1500 grams, and the significant weight reduction makes it easy for me as a female photographer to shoot outside.
Lightweight and portable eco-photography option
This lens uses an external zoom design, the length of the 400mm end lens is obviously elongated, but the storage length after zooming to 100mm is very small and very portable. There is a focus switching and stabilization switch in the position of the lens near the bayonet, and on the other side is a zoom lock lever that locks the lens in the 100mm focal length to avoid sliding the lens barrel due to its own weight when carrying.
This lens continues the very simple design language of the RF lens system, the front end of the lens is a multi-function control ring, users can set different functions according to their shooting habits to achieve the purpose of quickly adjusting the shooting, such as shooting a static longitudinal belly owl when appropriately slowing down the shutter speed, controlling the sensitivity; and in the shooting of the flying version of the big bird will quickly increase the shutter speed to capture dynamic moments. The control ring knurled design also has a texture, and the sense of passage when rotating is obviously convenient for the user to operate. After the multi-function control ring is the focus ring and zoom ring, the zoom ring is very wide, the surface provides enough friction for the striped rubber skin, the damping is moderate and delicate when zooming, with a smaller diameter one-handed can easily adjust the focal length, the angle of rotation is not large, and the focal segment logo is provided behind the zoom ring for the user to operate.
Longitudinal ventral owl RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM1/350 f/8iso 125
Takeoff Eagle RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM1/1000 f/8iso320
Outstanding focusing ability
The body with the RF100-400 is the EOS R5, a new generation of full-pixel dual-core CMOS AF II in the "Face + Track" autofocus mode, the autofocus range is extended to about 100% of the picture, further improving the focus accuracy and subject tracking effect, it supports bird eye focus. During the process of photographing the flower-tail hazelnut, I found that even in the dense forest, R5 with RF100-400, can avoid the branches and find the flower-tailed hazelnut chicken hidden behind.
Eyes of the hazelnut chicken locked in the dense forest RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/1000 f/8 iso 500
In addition to photographing larger birds, we also encountered the Wen whiskers on the way. The whiskered finch is a slightly funny-looking bird with a grey head and black eyes and black eyes that are connected to the black stripes downwards, forming a thick black spot that is very conspicuous on the pale head. Their food is mainly insects, spiders and reed seeds and grass, etc., especially active, especially like to jump in the reeds, which has a high demand on the focus ability of the lens. The RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM lens uses a NANO USM ultrasonic motor that helps me quickly and smoothly capture the playful appearance of the Bunsu bird swinging on the reeds.
文须雀 RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/500 f/8 iso 100
Traditional telephoto lenses require a large driving force due to the larger lens set used, and the focus drive requires a large driving force. Nano USM ultrasonic motor adopts a linear reciprocating drive mode, the power is consistent with the direction of motion of the focusing lens group, improves the efficiency of power use, takes into account the lens miniaturization, lightweight and high performance, and has a high control accuracy. With the focusing lens group at the rear of the lens, the smaller, easy-to-drive rear focus method also allows for fast autofocus at an ultra-telephoto focal length of 400mm.
Shuffle fox in the sunset RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/500 f/8 iso 50
We also found the pika next to the rock pile! When shooting lively pikas, the lens drive speed is fast, the focus response is high, it is not easy to miss the shutter timing, and the occasional appearance of the big-eared cute creature in the rock pile is recorded. When shooting the pika short film, the lens achieves smooth subject tracking and a gentle and stable virtual-real switching effect, which greatly simplifies the focus operation of video shooting and brings a professional shooting experience. The NANO USM ultrasonic motor also supports full-time manual focus, which can be manually fine-tuned after autofocus.
鼠兔 RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/1000 f/8 iso 2500
鼠兔 RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/1600 f/9 iso 3200
In winter , the long-tailed forest owl is more active in the morning and dusk , inhabiting montane coniferous forests , mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests , and feeding mainly on rodents , frogs and some small animals. Snow was falling, and in the dark weather and low light, the RF100-400 was very good at focusing on the subject and recording the spirit of the long-tailed forest owl in the snow. Thanks to the optimization of the lens drive control system, the lens can also achieve autofocus in low-light environments where it is difficult for the naked eye to distinguish between the foreground and the EOS R series models, which can be achieved with a low brightness limit.
Snow Long-tailed Forest Owl RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/400 f/8 iso 2000
Combined with the R5 fuselage, it achieves six levels of stabilization
Familiar with the living habits of the Owl of Prey, we know that the shooting opportunity of the national second-level protected animal Ulin Owl is mainly in the morning and evening, but at this time, the light is often insufficient, if you want to control noise, you need a lower shutter speed. RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM has a built-in optical hand shake compensation mechanism. The gyroscope sensor of the lens can detect the jitter, obtain the jitter compensation effect of the shutter speed of up to 5.5 levels, and also combine the image information of the camera CMOS image sensor to detect the amount of jitter, when used with the EOS R5, the fuselage and the lens can achieve coordinated stabilization, obtain the hand shake compensation effect of the maximum shutter speed of 6 levels, and can also shoot handheld under the low-speed shutter.
This liberated me greatly! The safety shutter speed can be greatly relaxed, which is conducive to shooting sharp images handheld in low-light environments, and the low-speed shutter can reduce the sensitivity as much as possible to obtain low-noise image quality. For video shooting, in many scenes, tripods and stabilizers can be omitted, which greatly improves the convenience of shooting. Videos I shoot handheld with the lens can be edited directly in post without shaking, which was completely unimaginable before.
Encounter the Ulin Owl at sunset
RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM1/320 f/8 iso 6400
Picture quality is uncompromising
Despite its small size and cost-effective price, the RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM can still show very good picture quality, it adopts 9 groups of 12 lens structure, through 1 aspherical lens and 1 UD (ultra-low dispersion) lens to effectively compensate for chromatic aberration, so that the subject has high definition and high contrast, the backlit national first-class protected animal black chicken feather details are clearly presented, and the texture is photographed.
National First Class Protected Animal Black Grouse RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/180 f/8 iso 200
Focal lengths are perfect for mating articulations
Overall, this RF100-400 will become an indispensable part of my camera bag, it will form a connection with the RF24-105mm F4 L IS USM, and can be paired with RF600mm F11 IS STM and RF800mm F11 IS STM to form a very cost-effective, lightweight lens group. For many users who use the EOS R series micro-camera, this is a very cost-effective ultra-telephoto zoom lens, and for female users, the lightweight volume also makes it more relaxed and convenient to use and carry.
Shoot the live picture, can you find the Ulin Owl in it?
The RF mount provides a large aperture of 54mm while drastically shortening the camera's flange pitch, making the rear focusing distance of the lens shorter, greatly increasing the flexibility of the optical design of the lens. By using a short rear focusing distance, large-bore lenses are placed close to the image sensor, so that the surrounding area of the picture is also of high image quality, which is easy to take photos of bird habitats.
Photographed Snow Ulin Owl RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM 1/125 f/8 iso 6400
The powerful stabilization ability comes from the computing power of the R series fuselage and also benefits from the greatly improved communication performance of the RF mount. RF mount in the design is very forward-looking, the EF mount of the 8 electronic contacts increased to 12, so that the data transmission capacity has been greatly improved, through the lens gyroscope sensor and camera CMOS image sensor on the amount of jitter double detection, you can compare and analyze the amount of jitter of the image, so as to judge the slow shaking of the subject and other low-frequency jitter, and through the communication of the RF mount, coordinate the control of the lens's IS stabilizer and sensor displacement, to achieve combined compensation, You can use the lower shutter speed to obtain a clear bird image handheld.