500mm

B&H & Adorama Now Taking Pre-Orders For Canon’s Latest Super Telephoto Lenses – 500mm and 600mm

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Following this mornings announcement from Canon that the new 500mm and 600mm lenses were now beginning to ship to dealers in Europe, B&H has updated their site to allow pre-orders of these two exciting new lenses.  This usually only happens when items are expected to arrive in stock relatively soon.  There’s a lot of buzz around what look likely to be Canon’s sharpest ever lenses and with people having to have waited more than a year for these to finally come to market I would expect demand to be relatively high initially for such a high priced item.  If you

Canon Announces That New 500mm and 600mm Lenses Are Now Shipping

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UPDATE: B&H is now offering both of these lenses for pre-order.  They typically only do this when things get relatively close to arriving. Finally!!  After many delays, the lenses that were announced more than a year ago are now “shipping to selected dealers in Europe” according to Canon CPN.  No word yet on N.American dealers but I would expect to hear any time soon.  This comes just one day after hearing that the first of the Canon 1D X cameras are also starting to ship to select photographers covering Euro 2012 and the London Olympics.  Is Canon finally getting back

Canon’s Super Tele Shipping Dates Slip Again

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Last month we heard the planned ship date had slipped back to April for the new 500mm and 60mm f2 L IS II lenses.  Now, again via The Digital Picture, we are hearing that things have now slipped to May.  This is getting a bit frustrating for those of us who are waiting for one of these lenses!  I really need to have my new 500mm for a trip in June and this is looking increasingly unlikely. From Canon: “We appreciate your understanding and continued support.”

Canon 500mm MKII and 600mm MKII Availability.

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Via The Digital Picture these lenses are now expected to be available in April.  Originally they were scheduled for “before the end of 2011” but things slipped.  I have my eye on picking up the 500mm myself so I’m really waiting for this one.  Hopefully I get to have a hands-on look at one during CES next week in Las Vegas.

Getty Photographer Checking Out New Canon Technology ?

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I thought this was kind of interesting.  Getty sports photographer Clive Rose tweeted yesterday that he was : “Waiting outside #Canon to get a preview of some new tech.” Hmmm, I wonder what it could be ?  If I had to guess I’d say that it was to take a look at one of Canon’s yet to be released super telephoto lenses like the 500mm MKII or 600mm MKII, perhaps the 200-400 f4 L.  Possible that it was a camera, but there haven’t been any recent solid indications of a new camera this year whereas the super telephoto lenses are

Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS Review

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You might be wandering why I’m going to talk about this lens when Canon has already announced it’s replacement, due to hit store shelves in December 2011.  Whilst it’s true that the new EF 500mm f4 L IS II is 17% lighter than this version, the optical improvements will be fairly minor.  It’s tough to improve on the quality of any of Canon’s super telephotos.  The list price of the upcoming MKII 500mm is $10,000 but the current version is selling for “only” $6900.  When version 2 hits the second hand market there is sure to be an explosion of