topic Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife in EF & RF Lenses

Best Zoom lense for wildlife

MrsSmith0817 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:17:19 GMT

Hello,

My husband got me the EOS R10 for Christmas and since I'm relatively new at photography with a camera I was wondering if anyone could suggest a zoom lense under 5 grand that I would be happy with. The lense I currently have is 18- 150 and if the wildlife isn't right there in front of me, you can't really see any details! My phones 3 lenses takes a better picture if I'm honest!

Thank you!

Dana

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

March411 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:56:58 GMT

MrsSmith0817, welcome to the site.

Both of these lenses are within you budget and are pretty close to perfect for wildlife. I own both but for whatever reason prefer the RF100-500. The R10 is a smaller light body so you may also want to consider a mono-pod.

RF200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM $1,899.00

RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM $2,699.00

And keep an eye on the Refurbished because they can drop in there from time to time. Best to set up an account and hit the notify me prompt so that you know when they hit.

Canon Refurbished Lenses

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

ebiggs1 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:11:38 GMT

Oh my the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM Lens without question. There is no substitute for focal length get all you can. You already have found out the 100mm/150mm is almost useless for wildlife so why pay all that money for a lens that has 100mm? Even 200mm isn't enough but the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM Lens also has 800mm. For folks struggling with math that's 300mm more and that is a good thing.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

ebiggs1 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:16:53 GMT

One more thing these type of lenses are big and they have a learning curver to get the best from them. While you are at it get DPP4 form Canon it is free to d/l. Always use raw format never jpg. SS wil be of increased importance mostly above 1/1000.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

March411 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:17:08 GMT

LOL.... a recommendation and a math lesson, good stuff Ernie. You can't go wrong with RF 200-800mm, it is a fine lens.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

kvbarkley — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:24:53 GMT

With your budget you could throw in an R6 mkII, too. That is an upgrade over the just-above-entry level R10.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

March411 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:38:07 GMT

@kvbarkley wrote:

With your budget you could throw in an R6 mkII, too. That is an upgrade over the just-above-entry level R10.

Now were talking! Great body for wildlife and low light.

And there just happens to be some available in the refurb site

Refurbished EOS R6 Mark II Body - $2,019

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

Ron888 — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 01:13:14 GMT

Interesting.You dont miss the extra length of the 200-800?

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

March411 — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 04:31:19 GMT

When hiking the RF100-500 is easier to carry and I believe I get better IQ on the tight shots at short focal lengths. It is just a more versatile lens for me and most times I can close the distance on my subjects.

These were taken on the same outing. I can grab shots like this when I am almost on top of a subject.

Or reach out for something like this...

Don't get me wrong, I love the RF 200-800mm but find that I carry the 100-500mm and have great success.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

TomRamsey — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 21:55:28 GMT

I have had a RF200-800 lens since September and highly recommend it. I bought it along with the R6 MarkII in June specifically for wildlife, my first Canon camera, I've shot wildlife with a longest length of 420mm (Pentax APS-C) for several years and it is certainly a step up. Yes the widest aperture at 800mm is f9, but the light gathering ability of the R6 MarkII makes up for that. It's a big lens, but the combination is really no heaver than my Pentax K-3 Mark III, tc, and 300.f4 lens. To me that is easily hand holdable (I'm 70 years old) but maybe not for everybody.

As Marc (March411) said, it is probably not as good for butterflies and close subjects, at 800mm the minimum focus distance is 3.3 meters, as you zoom down, that distance is less. KVBarkley also mentioned the R6 MarkII which is a great combo from my experience. Although in your shoes I would try the lens on your R10 first, and see if you could borrow or rent the R6 MarkII for a tryout to see if it was worth it to you. If you are in the area of Coasta SE North Carolina you can come and try mine.

The pictures below are all cropped, the Golden-crowned Kinglet is cropped an awful lot. The subject size on the R10 and R6 MarkII is the same, but the picture from the R6 MarkII will have more background around the subject. So looking at the whole image may seem like it is smaller, but there is a lot of detail there so you can crop quite a bit and still get great detail. 24 megapixels on that larger full frame sensor make for larger pixel size and allows for better low light capabilities.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

March411 — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:32:16 GMT

Nice grab of the Waxwing, big fan of the composition and with the berry in it's mouth.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

TomRamsey — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 01:00:55 GMT

Thanks, I don't see waxwings very often, but when they do there are lots of them, but hard to get a good shot in that holly tree. That one happened to be visible and when it posed with the berry, and I got lucky. The waxwings and a few bluebirds cleaned out the tree in a few days.

Re: Best Zoom lense for wildlife

ebiggs1 — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 16:16:18 GMT

Beautiful shots perhaps a bit over saturated for my liking but really nice. Good job. 😊