Canon Might Have Some Crazy Telephoto Zooms in the Pipeline

Canon Might Have Some Crazy Telephoto Zooms in the Pipeline

Canon has the announcement of the new 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS coming up in the very near future, but a couple of patents have emerged that might make sports and wildlife shooters particularly excited.

The forthcoming 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 for Canon’s full-frame mirrorless cameras looks to be something of a beast of an L-series lens, and an official announcement from Canon as to its availability should be not far off. 

Meanwhile, Canon News has unearthed some interesting patents for 100-600mm and 120-700mm lenses. As noted, it seems unlikely that Canon would release either of these given that the 100-500mm is currently in production, but it is an indication of how the Japanese manufacturer has been developing lenses for its new mount, and perhaps a longer lens might appear at some point in the future.

Fans will be interested to see how the new 100-500mm lens fares in comparison to Sony’s 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS, another stabilized telephoto zoom that many regard as quite affordable at just under $2,000. How the Canon lens will compare in terms of price remains to be seen, though if it’s in keeping with the current range of RF glass, it could well come in at over $3,000.

Will you be buying Canon's new RF telephoto lens? What are your expectations in terms of price? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

Log in or register to post comments
10 Comments

Amazing!!
One Good News during Covid-19 Lockdown🙂

Even to buy the R5 camera will drain my life saving, plus this? I will hunt second hand EF 500, might get a good bargain.

Hunting for second hand lenses is great, when I had the chance to buy the new 50mm TS-E macro lens from Canon, they made me wait too long, as there weren't enough copies deliverable for those who waited. Well, some got theirs, and sold their old 45 ts-e, and the 90 ts-e too. So I decided to get two old lenses for less than the price of the new one. I don't rely on ultimate quality, and the old lenses are really great. Of course, for macro I need macro extension rings to get closer.

Always having an eye on that kind of market.

Exactly. There was a young photographer I met at a bar wanting to sell his dad's old 50mm lens for 500$.and I said, that's a stupid price for a second hand fifty. He lowered the price to 350 and I was "let me see it kid". Turns out that it's an old EF50mm f/1. I tested with his camera, went to the ATM, pay 350 and extra 50 for his taxi ride home.

It was 13 years ago and I still love to tell people about how I get my 50mm. Feels like you win something.

Wow, impressive. I know a store here in Vienna, Austria, where they have 2 of them with the Leica M mount for roughly 4500$, in very good condition as far as I can guess from the images.
Anyway, as I'm approaching 50 this year my eye condition would help me shooting at such an aperture. Congrats to owning Canons dream lens.

This sports photographer only wants long, fast primes. They can keep that stuff.

100-700? would be a nice for surfing

I want decent non L long lens like the 120-700mm. That would be sweet.
Canon would be superior to Tamron and Sigma but cost would be truly affordable for mere mortals wanting to get into the R system.

How much will it weigh? Will I need to hire a sherpa?

A f/4.5-7.1 is practically worthless for wildlife photography. I would much rather use a f/2.8 70-200; however, for your average Yellowstone tourist I’m sure these will be great as they’re mostly taking pics in the middle of the day with too much light.