Canon Makes Its Move: Two "Big Guns" Rumoured, Including an Ultra-Light 600mm f/4 DO IS with DO Optics — Interested?

It was previously rumoured that Nikon would launch, before the 2018 World Cup, a Nikkor 200-400mm f/4E ED VR with a built-in 1.4x teleconverter. Canon is now rumoured to release two super-telephoto prime "big guns" at the same time. One is the experimental 600mm f/4 DO IS, which was shown at the Canon EXPO exhibition in 2015 last year. Little is known about the other; according to Canon Rumors, it may be a second-generation EF 200mm f/2L IS or EF 800mm f/5.6L IS. It seems the World Cup next year has the whole camera industry buzzing!

If the 600mm f/4 DO IS is really launched, its diffractive optics (DO) design could make a super-telephoto lens much lighter. Judging from the experimental version at the 2015 Canon EXPO, the lens body already looked very compact!

A prototype appeared as early as 2015, so after two years the design should be quite mature, and the chances of seeing the new lens at next year's World Cup are fairly high. The EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM uses a third-generation diffractive optics (DO) element and has a green ring on the barrel to set it apart, but lenses with DO elements are indeed very lightweight: this lens is only 232.7mm long and weighs only about 2,100g.

The Canon EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS DO USM, which was only discontinued in May, is small and light, measuring just 99.9 x 82.4mm and weighing 720g, yet the market response to DO lenses seems to have been muted. Will launching the 600mm f/4 DO IS restore the reputation of the DO system?

The other rumoured big-gun lens is estimated to be a second-generation EF 200mm f/2L IS or EF 800mm f/5.6L IS. If it is a lens launched for the 2018 World Cup, the EF 800mm f/5.6L IS II seems the more likely candidate, since for a telephoto lens, 800mm suits market demand better than 200mm.

Reposted from: http://photo.popart.hk/newweb/archives/167992