Received this beauty on Saturday, primary will be sports but playing around in the front yard today, one of our many Texas Horny lizards. This GM is producing some decent stuff with the 1.4x attached. This is at 560 effective, 1/400, f/9, iso 800, handheld on the a75. Minor crop in LR.
Nice! The rendering looks pleasant on that. To my eyes, with my 200-600 (sold) the backgrounds always looked skittish to me. Have the 100-400 4.5 on preorder and am hoping to be as pleased with the incremental improvement as I was going from the 70-200GM to 50-150GM (zero regrets). My primary use will also be sports (youth). I am actually going to use it as an indoor event lens in my first go with it ironically (where I can't control where I sit).
Thanks. Yeah, no looking back here either when I moved to the 50-150. The real test with this 100-400 will be how well it can handles marginal lighting. I'm pretty happy with DXO PureRaw NR, we'll see because I see myself routinely utilizing 16K ISO. The AF on this new offering is pretty amazing even as zooming, stays locked perfectly. Regarding daytime shooting, the 1.4x matches pretty darn well. I don't own a 2x any longer, most likely never will again.
So overall after owning just two days and really only shooting around the yard, I'm impressed. Now what to do with the 300GM . If this new lens holds up well in low light, the 300 will go...as much as I love it along with its 3 lbs.
Nice to read that you’re happy with the lens enough to get rid of your 300GM. The early hot take that I saw was that this lens was only about as sharp as the 200-600, which I can’t imagine is true (will find out soon enough). I don’t use TCs so I don’t care about equivalency against the 1.4 myself. Sharpness aside, contrast and rendering look better anyway vs the 200-600 IMHO. I’m guessing AF for sports will be better and lead to better outcomes as well. Time will tell.
I completely disagree that this is on par with the 200-600 in which I have owned twice. I have seen that as well from those who have obviously not used this new lens. Even with the 1.4x, this lens is faster and sharper. Native, no comparison. This is a stellar offering from Sony, decent price for what you are getting and well balanced.
I'm not there yet on getting rid of the 300 (sooo good) but if I can swing the low lighting in stadiums/arena's, the 300 will go. Can't justify keeping both. I will miss the 3 lbs however, incredible aspect of the 300! I did remove my grip just to shave off some weight using this new lens.
Can't wait to shoot some sports with it, dead time of year however...sadly.
Jemini wrote:
Thanks for sharing this. Looks great. Nice bokeh of course. Waiting for a side by side comparison of 200-600 and this lens+1.4x.
The MTF of the 100-400 lens alone is better than the 200-600, but I'm also needing to see some resolution tests with the 1.4x in comparison. Regardless of the differences, it emphasizes that there should be a better 200-600 like a GM.
EB-1 wrote:
The MTF of the 100-400 lens alone is better than the 200-600, but I'm also needing to see some resolution tests with the 1.4x in comparison. Regardless of the differences, it emphasizes that there should be a better 200-600 like a GM.
EBH
200-600 has only G level AF and it is fairly dark at long end. For GM badge it should focus faster and closer, and be at least f/5.6 @600mm. All this without being larger. Price would sure be 3x
There sure is significant ligth falloff at 600/6.3, though better at f/7.1.
The crudely designed tripod mount ring (appears to be a plain bearing) is my largest complaint so far.
I'd go up to $8K or more if f/5.6 and it had a 1.4x TC.
Alternatively a really good f/6.3 with a 1.25x might work at a lower weight and cost. That would be 750/8 with the TC.
My guy says the lenses have shown up for in-hand day 6/11 and mine is in that batch. Now I know what I'm doing on Thursday morning . First big test will be the soccer match on 6/17.
I was just reading something about how Canon is releasing new long lenses, and how the 200-400 f4 TC was a market failure, and while in my mind faster is better, always, the 4.5 zoom clocking in at half the weight and a third the cost doesn't feel like bad compromises (assuming sharpness and rendering are satisfying). Looking forward to getting the lens this week (I hope).
schlotz wrote:
My guy says the lenses have shown up for in-hand day 6/11 and mine is in that batch. Now I know what I'm doing on Thursday morning . First big test will be the soccer match on 6/17.
Will you be shooting a night game? I've got the Sigma 300-600f4 and at night games I'm pushing the limits of high iso and getting quality images and was wondering what you will get at f4.5. It's not a huge difference, but as you know every little bit helps.
Yup, it will be a night game although this time of the year 7pm starts with the sunset a bit after 9pm isn't a full ISO challenge. The exceptions are heavy cloud cover and weather. Last Sat it poured in the second half and the ISO went up a ton. I'll try to post here my first impressions after the 6/17 match. FYI, I usually post game captures the next day. See link in the www.
hyken wrote:
Received this beauty on Saturday, primary will be sports but playing around in the front yard today, one of our many Texas Horny lizards. This GM is producing some decent stuff with the 1.4x attached. This is at 560 effective, 1/400, f/9, iso 800, handheld on the a75. Minor crop in LR.
It is indeed a unique shot, but as an example with a 1.4x TC attached, it is dismal example of what quality this lens will deliver compared to the shots with a 2x TC taken here:
Imagemaster wrote:
It is indeed a unique shot, but as an example with a 1.4x TC attached, it is dismal example of what quality this lens will deliver compared to the shots with a 2x TC taken here:
. If this new lens holds up well in low light, the 300 will go...as much as I love it along with its 3 lbs. 
