Supertelephoto primes have always been specialty lenses. Unless you were regularly shooting sports or wildlife, it was virtually impossible to justify the cost. Of course, a smaller sensor size makes it easier to get to the supertelephoto focal lengths – essentially anything longer than 300mm – but even these lenses can still be quite expensive, especially the faster primes. As with 35mm film, supertelephotos for full frame sensors are big, heavy and very expensive regardless of whether the camera body is a DSLR or mirrorless.
How expensive? Well, Sony’s 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS for the FE mount will set you back just under $20,000 and the FE 600mm f/4.0 GM OSS is yours for $22,000. Nikon will happily sell you the F mount AF-S 600mm f/4.0G ED VR for somewhere in the region of $16,000 and Canon’s rival EF- mount 600mm f/4.0L IS III USM is going to cost you around another three grand.
What about an 800mm supertele? Nikon’s AF-S 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR is priced at around $27,000 and the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM is a bit more ‘affordable’ at a little under $19,000. Sigma’s 800mm f/5.6 APO EX DG HSM – a real snip at around $9,500 – has recently been discontinued. But like all the lenses we’ve just mentioned, it was still big and heavy. The Canon EF-mount 800mm, for example, is 46cm in length and weighs 4.5kg. So, even though it has optical image stabilisation, you won’t be doing any handheld shooting with that beast.
No doubt all of this was in the minds
