Great lens

2026-01-18    -Amazon Customer

Used it with my Canon R7 camera and is very happy with the results!Took the lens to Botswana it travelled well

5.0 out of 5 stars The reach is 200mm over all comparably priced competitors

2026-01-25    -Dave Berg

First of all I like the reach. Of course whenever trying out a new lens there is a learning curve. In this case spotting birds in flight at 600-800mm is a skill I need to work on quite a bit more to say I'm confident.. The weight is another plus. Yes I will use this lens on a tripod or a monopod often enough, but I have a detailed, sharp image of the moon taken as a handheld device. For the money, this lens cannot be beaten for people who do not make their living selling photos or prints to the media. This lens is all I need to capture birds in flight which is one of the main reasons I picked up the photography hobby in the first place. This is not an "L" less, and did doesn't have to be. Canon is finally providing good quality glass to photographers like me who want to improve their skills without draining their bank accounts. The aperture range of 6.3-9.0 is not a problem especially if I take advantage of every good light situation when I want to use this lens.

5.0 out of 5 stars great optical quality and focal range

2025-12-30    -Gabe

This is a hreat lense. paired with R50 it provide great focal range and clarity. I bought tjis mainly to take pictures of birds. The lens is obviously bulky and somewhat heavy, but not as heavy as I was expecting.

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful high focal length Canon RF lens for the price

2025-12-31    -DAVID A MAIR

I really only bought this because it's slightly faster (brighter) at 800mm than my existing Canon RF800mm prime lens (f/9 versus f/11). This costs about twice as much as the RF800mm, but Canon have an even faster RF800mm f/5.6 prime that costs almost 10x this, hence I feel it is good value upgrade from my existing 800mm f/11. I had already used that prime lens to photograph full-frame moon pictures, plus pictures of Jupiter with the Magellanic moons visible, Saturn with the rings visible and Mars with some surface relief visible using my 30MP full-frame Canon EOS-R and the Canon 2x teleconverter. The 2x makes it effectively a 400mm to 1600mm zoom which is up-to 32x magnification and better than most telescopes would be without magnifying eypieces. But, the field of view is only about 3 degrees without the teleconverter and 1.5 degrees with it which is admitedly very narrow compared to a telescope. Nevertheless, this lens has a focal length that can extend as far as basic home telescopes. The visible planets are about 1% of the frame area on my 30MP full-frame Canon EOS-R making the camera meter unusable for exposure but that's just a matter of better "exposure guessing" gained from experience over repeat shoots. The lens is too heavy to handhold usefully, but works well on a tripod. The zoom range is good enough to permit having it wide at 200mm for broad scene observation then zoom in on a specific object of attraction, e.g. long range wildlife shooting. The zoom tension can be adjusted to allow zooming with low force and minimize disturbing tripod alignment too much. I'm attaching two photographs. They are the same mountain top taken minutes apart at between three and four miles distant to the East in the evening before sunset. The poor quality one is from my cellphone camera's 100x zoom mode but with the phone on a tripod, the better quality one was with this Canon lens using a 2x teleconverter, on my Canon EOS-R. I estimate there is about 25x as much detail in the scene taken using this lens, you can see individual tree trunks, branches and more with this lens at 32x magnification whereas there's very little detail in the phone pic at 100x magnification. If someone was hiking you would be able to tell a person was in the shot with this lens. The reason for the better detail at 32x magnification (teleconverter 2x included) than with 100x magnification on my phone is that my phone zoom crops and expands a section of a 12MP sensor output if the zoom is more than 3x. Doing the frame math, I'd estimate this lens with the 2x teleconverter still has a 30MP camera sensor, whereas my phone at 100x zoom I estimate is equivalent to a 1.2MP camera at 33x magnification. The detail in the strata of the rock at the peak from this lens is much better, you can barely tell it's present in the phone picture. There's other nice detail, the rock at the peak is geographically tilted, raised at the left, lowered at the right, you can see it in the full camera shot from both the angled rock strata and the fact that the trees grow vertically, regardless of their floor. In the phone shot there's no quality to any of the trees that permits deducing that. I'm really looking forward to trying this lens when Saturn is easier to view in two months. I should be able to get pictures again where the rings are visible as I did with my slower RF800mm f/11 prime lens. Another advantage of this over the Canon RF800mm f/11 is the aperture is adjustable on this lens but is fixed at f/11 on the prime lens. Depth of field adjustment is possible with this lens (minimum focus distance is 2.6 feet at 200mm and 10.8 feet at 800mm) so consider wildlife at a quarter mile on a bright day instead of my planetary and 3 to 4 mile distant mountain tests then use of depth of field artistically seems possible plus the full automatic exposure isn't limited to setting shutter speed. In a bright enough scene you can reduce shutter speed and let the aperture compensate, also making for potentially better exposure compensation and bracketing results. It's only detail but this comes with a lens hood and the RF100mm to 400mm zoom and the RF800mm f/11 don't.

5.0 out of 5 stars great optical quality and focal range

2026-02-05    -Gabe

This is a hreat lense. paired with R50 it provide great focal range and clarity. I bought tjis mainly to take pictures of birds. The lens is obviously bulky and somewhat heavy, but not as heavy as I was expecting.

5.0 out of 5 stars The reach is 200mm over all comparably priced competitors

2026-01-26    -Dave Berg

First of all I like the reach. Of course whenever trying out a new lens there is a learning curve. In this case spotting birds in flight at 600-800mm is a skill I need to work on quite a bit more to say I'm confident.. The weight is another plus. Yes I will use this lens on a tripod or a monopod often enough, but I have a detailed, sharp image of the moon taken as a handheld device. For the money, this lens cannot be beaten for people who do not make their living selling photos or prints to the media. This lens is all I need to capture birds in flight which is one of the main reasons I picked up the photography hobby in the first place. This is not an "L" less, and did doesn't have to be. Canon is finally providing good quality glass to photographers like me who want to improve their skills without draining their bank accounts. The aperture range of 6.3-9.0 is not a problem especially if I take advantage of every good light situation when I want to use this lens.

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best wildlife lens today 👌

2026-01-09    -The Photo Chad

This is a tremendous lens.I used to use the the R5 with the RF 100-500L and it was a killer combination. But, tbh I think the R3 with the RF 200-800 is better.The reach is a big part of that. I have lower megapixels with the R3, but there's basically no need to crop with the 200-800's reach. Plus, it's very fast to focus with my R3, and the pictures are sharp. Sure, it's fairly heavy, the throw is quite a bit (basically how you zoom in and out), and finally the collar can't be removed.But, those are really the only cons I can think of. This lens really is an amazing combination of value and quality. Probably the best wildlife lens out there tbh.You won't regret buying this bad boy.*Fyi I use the JJC DLP-8II as a case / pouch for the lens.

Excelente

2026-02-08    -Hector Gerardo Ramirez García

Llego en excelente estado y en cuanto a funcionamiento es excelente

Great lense

2026-03-03    -Dave McIntosh

This lens is great, especially for the price. I have only been using it for a week and so am still getting used to it but it is exactly what I was looking for.

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful high focal length Canon RF lens for the price

2026-01-14    -DAVID A MAIR

I really only bought this because it's slightly faster (brighter) at 800mm than my existing Canon RF800mm prime lens (f/9 versus f/11). This costs about twice as much as the RF800mm, but Canon have an even faster RF800mm f/5.6 prime that costs almost 10x this, hence I feel it is good value upgrade from my existing 800mm f/11. I had already used that prime lens to photograph full-frame moon pictures, plus pictures of Jupiter with the Magellanic moons visible, Saturn with the rings visible and Mars with some surface relief visible using my 30MP full-frame Canon EOS-R and the Canon 2x teleconverter. The 2x makes it effectively a 400mm to 1600mm zoom which is up-to 32x magnification and better than most telescopes would be without magnifying eypieces. But, the field of view is only about 3 degrees without the teleconverter and 1.5 degrees with it which is admitedly very narrow compared to a telescope. Nevertheless, this lens has a focal length that can extend as far as basic home telescopes. The visible planets are about 1% of the frame area on my 30MP full-frame Canon EOS-R making the camera meter unusable for exposure but that's just a matter of better "exposure guessing" gained from experience over repeat shoots. The lens is too heavy to handhold usefully, but works well on a tripod. The zoom range is good enough to permit having it wide at 200mm for broad scene observation then zoom in on a specific object of attraction, e.g. long range wildlife shooting. The zoom tension can be adjusted to allow zooming with low force and minimize disturbing tripod alignment too much. I'm attaching two photographs. They are the same mountain top taken minutes apart at between three and four miles distant to the East in the evening before sunset. The poor quality one is from my cellphone camera's 100x zoom mode but with the phone on a tripod, the better quality one was with this Canon lens using a 2x teleconverter, on my Canon EOS-R. I estimate there is about 25x as much detail in the scene taken using this lens, you can see individual tree trunks, branches and more with this lens at 32x magnification whereas there's very little detail in the phone pic at 100x magnification. If someone was hiking you would be able to tell a person was in the shot with this lens. The reason for the better detail at 32x magnification (teleconverter 2x included) than with 100x magnification on my phone is that my phone zoom crops and expands a section of a 12MP sensor output if the zoom is more than 3x. Doing the frame math, I'd estimate this lens with the 2x teleconverter still has a 30MP camera sensor, whereas my phone at 100x zoom I estimate is equivalent to a 1.2MP camera at 33x magnification. The detail in the strata of the rock at the peak from this lens is much better, you can barely tell it's present in the phone picture. There's other nice detail, the rock at the peak is geographically tilted, raised at the left, lowered at the right, you can see it in the full camera shot from both the angled rock strata and the fact that the trees grow vertically, regardless of their floor. In the phone shot there's no quality to any of the trees that permits deducing that. I'm really looking forward to trying this lens when Saturn is easier to view in two months. I should be able to get pictures again where the rings are visible as I did with my slower RF800mm f/11 prime lens. Another advantage of this over the Canon RF800mm f/11 is the aperture is adjustable on this lens but is fixed at f/11 on the prime lens. Depth of field adjustment is possible with this lens (minimum focus distance is 2.6 feet at 200mm and 10.8 feet at 800mm) so consider wildlife at a quarter mile on a bright day instead of my planetary and 3 to 4 mile distant mountain tests then use of depth of field artistically seems possible plus the full automatic exposure isn't limited to setting shutter speed. In a bright enough scene you can reduce shutter speed and let the aperture compensate, also making for potentially better exposure compensation and bracketing results. It's only detail but this comes with a lens hood and the RF100mm to 400mm zoom and the RF800mm f/11 don't.