p.3 #1 · 100-400mm f4.5 owners: what’s the verdict?
mslino wrote:
Hi everyone!
For anyone who does air shows, I think the Sony 200-600mm is a no-brainer; it's heavy, but it gives you, I'd say, 90% of the reach you need for shooting air shows. I had a bad copy of this lens, and it was frustrating. I sold it and bought the Sony 400-800mm, and now I'm using it with my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6.
I'm very interested in buying the new 600mm f/6.3 to use with a 1.4x extender if I need more reach and to carry less weight than the 400-800mm.
Canon's 200-800 has the most ideal ideal focal range for airshow, IMHO, but Sony doesn't have one. Before the 400-800 came out, my main airshow lens was the 200-600 (I had a very good copy) and the 600mm f4+1.4 TC on another camera if I needed the reach. For how I shoot, 800mm is vastly more important than 200mm. So now the 400-800 is my main day time airshow lens. I bring a shorter lens on another camera if I think I may need wider than 400mm occasionally. The 100-400 f4.5 sounds great as the secondary lens, but I don't want carry a lens this big if I may use it for 10% of the time.
When the weather is good and I have time, I will test the 100-400 f4.5+2X TC vs the 400-800 on static subjects to see which one is sharper. I suspect the 400-800 will be sharper to some degree, but if the 100-400+2X TC is 95% as sharp as the 400-800, then I would say trading a little bit of sharpness for much less weight and more flexible focal length is worth it. F9 vs F8 isn't a big deal for day time airshows. For sunset airshows, which are miles prettier than day time shows, I used the 600 f4, and now 300 GM+2 X TC after I sold the 600 f4. I am disappointed Sony makes a 600 f6.3 instead of a 600 f5.6, 1/3 of a stop is still 1/3 of a stop better when the light gets dimmer.
p.3 #2 · 100-400mm f4.5 owners: what’s the verdict?
I don't think this was referenced here ... Dustin Abbott has a nice discussion here on The Best (Affordable) Way to Reach 600mm and 800mm on Sony - ?si=E4LuxCiQ_xlgjTAR
