I finally got my lens, and I'm pretty happy with its weight. I took it out back to shoot some Yellow-Bellied Marmots. A young one posed for the new lens.
ILCE-1FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS lens725mmf/8.01/2000s5000 ISO0.0 EV
Full res images, click the image link. Still testing out the lens, images have very minor edits in LR. One thing I'm going to have to adjust to is the working distance and the very shallow DOF at 800mm. Having fun so far!
Chasing Birds lens coat stretches slightly and fits snug. Material is thinner than my 200-600 Outdoor Photography Gear lens coat. Pieces are cut & aligned straighter too. Even comes with a long allen wrench for foot removal. Interestingly, even the foot has a cover.
Douglas L wrote:
My Chasing Bird lens cover was just delivered, 5 days earlier than stated. Took 15 minutes to put it on. I didn't use the piece for the Sony hood nor the piece for the foot, since I am using a metal hood and will get a replacement foot when it's available.
I like this coat, a bit thinner than the Lenscoat, much softer and elastic than the RolandPro, much better protection than a skin. I am quite happy with it.
I just received mine today. I like the fit, I would say it is a perfectly snug fit. I also like the "ribbed" (for lack of a better word) finish for the zoom and AF rings. That finish provides a different feel than the other rings since you mostly don't look and see while out shooting. You select those rings by the different touch. Of course, that applies mostly the zoom ring that I use all the time. The edge of those rings is nicely stitched, too and will minimize "unravelling" in the future. I have had a few lens coats over the years. This is my first Chasing Birds coat and so far, I like it a lot and it seems the best in my experience.
Top tip:
Do not drop the front cap on a hard surface! It will unassemble itself into five pieces very easily. It's easy to reassemble, though, as long as you find the two springs.
RT-- wrote:
Top tip:
Do not drop the front cap on a hard surface! It will unassemble itself into five pieces very easily. It's easy to reassemble, though, as long as you find the two springs.
I have been using a pinch cap of the same size that I bought for my GM 300mm and keep the OEM one in the box. It fits perfectly and not bad for about $10 from A*****n,
I tried out the 1.4xTC on the lens today, just some rough snaps to see how well it performs. It performed better than I expected. I'm not sure I'll use it much as for my shooting style/subjects, the 800mm reach with the 1.5x crop should cover 95% of what I try to photograph. But, it's nice to know it can capture shots when needed.
Post processing - LR - Auto - Export. No additional sharpening, LR default of 40
Full res images, click on the links to view the details.
Interesting comparison. Especially the AF speed tests. I don’t have the 600GM, but the results for the 400-800mm and the 300GM/TC’s mirror my experience. I’m also a little surprised with the AF speed of the 400-800mm bare lens. Not bad!
The focus on the test deserves applause, but if you want to test the speed of the various lenses....the subject must be the same size on the sensor, basically report at the same magnification.
On the 300mm the tower turns out to be much smaller and finding contrast involves more time, not for nothing the times turn out to be the same with the various TCs, because as the image is enlarged finding contrast becomes easier and faster, and even if the TCs slow down...in the end the result evens out.
By itself the 300gm is the fastest ever, a missile.
I tried to do some tests this morning but the weather wasn't cooperating.
I did manage to find out that at 400mm, the 400-800 is about 6% longer than the 100-400GM.
_MacTwin_ wrote:
The focus on the test deserves applause, but if you want to test the speed of the various lenses....the subject must be the same size on the sensor, basically report at the same magnification.
On the 300mm the tower turns out to be much smaller and finding contrast involves more time, not for nothing the times turn out to be the same with the various TCs, because as the image is enlarged finding contrast becomes easier and faster, and even if the TCs slow down...in the end the result evens out.
By itself the 300gm is the fastest ever, a missile.
Pretty sure this is an AF-C focus test, and it's not using contrast detection. It's only relying on PDAF inputs.
So basically the test is measuring the focus actuators speed.
No additional sharpening, LR default of 40 
