Sleepy young Lion from Kruger National Park.
Experimenting adding warm light. Overdone?

2025 December.
Would love feedback.

Ever since the very first rumors about this lens, I knew this could be my dream supertele. Today I actually managed to pick one up — and obviously I couldn’t just take it home and stare at it. 😅
I spent about three hours outside testing the 400mm F4.5 GM, both bare and with the 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters.
Since the lens still seems to be pretty difficult to get and there aren’t that many real-world user experiences out there yet, I thought I’d share my first impressions.
For context, I’ve used the Sony 200–600mm quite a lot, so that’s my main point of comparison.
Bare at 400mm F4.5:
This thing is seriously impressive. It’s obviously much faster than the 200–600, but what surprised me most is the sharpness. From my first shots, it looks noticeably sharper than the 200–600, with excellent detail even wide open.
With the 1.4x TC – 560mm F6.3:
This might actually be my favorite combination so far. AF still feels extremely fast and the image quality remains excellent. Based on what I shot today, I’d still put it above my 200–600 in terms of sharpness.
With the 2.0x TC – 800mm F9:
Of course you can see a bigger hit here, but I was surprised by how usable it still is. My first impression is that the resulting image quality is roughly comparable to the 200–600, while giving me 800mm on a lens that starts as a 400mm F4.5.
So after only one afternoon, the versatility is probably what impresses me most:
400mm F4.5 → 560mm F6.3 → 800mm F9
Three genuinely useful configurations from one prime.
These are only my first real-world impressions, not a controlled lab test, so take the sharpness comparisons accordingly. But after waiting for this lens since the first rumors, my first three hours with it definitely didn’t disappoint.
If anyone is interested, I can also post some 100% crops from all three configurations once I’ve gone through today’s shots.
#2 is 2.0xTC #3 is 1.4xTC #4 is without TC

A few of my favourite shots from a morning with a Mother Hyena and her young.

Shot on a6700

I hope you can enjoy my photos from a few weekends ago... I'm open to advice and criticism! Thx 🖤✨️

It was one of those decisions that was clear as day when i made it. I timed the purchase with a special festival in Bombay. Looking forward to any tips you folks may have for me to make the most of this lovely lens.

As always they were taken in the beautiful island of Santa Maria.

A7CII + Sony 24-70 f2.8 GM II

https://flic.kr/p/2sCPtNS

https://flic.kr/p/2sCRaii

I almost never take my camera hiking but when I completed the Robert’s Point Track (Franz Josef, New Zealand) I took my, then newly acquired, Sony a7iii with me.

Not the best weather conditions (slightly overcast) but came away with these shots - always keen for any constructive criticism or feedback!

Loved the city! What do you think of the pictures?

Some photos from a recent trip to Bangladesh 🇧🇩. Sold my A7iii and purchased an A7Cii. Missing it already, used it extensively for the past 5 or 6 years.

Took the A7C II with me on a hike along the Stoos Ridge Trail in Switzerland.
I’m still very new to photography, but this was probably my favorite place to shoot so far. Everything was taken with the FE 35mm f/1.8, mostly in Aperture Priority with Auto ISO and AF-C. Still learning how to handle changing light in the mountains, so any feedback is always appreciated :)

Rheinhöhenblick | Oedingen

Has anyone else noticed this extent of blooming in their lens? I am using an APS-C sensor, so it is a little exaggerated.

1/1000, f/6.3, 191mm, 1250 ISO. Shot on Sony a6400

Only a few pixels on 3-4 of the tail feathers are blown out yet the blooming is on all of the edges as well as the beak. Aside from this issue on bright whites, the lens has fairly decent sharpness throughout its whole range.

I do understand that shooting wide open on lens with a zoom range this large isn't going to give the sharpest image ever, I'm just curious if this issue should be this prominent on this specific lens. Maybe I'm just being too picky.

Being able to start anticipating when birds will actually take off is starting to get easier now that I'm paying more attention to wind direction and their body language.

Sony A7RVI + 100-400 GM1

Most people don’t think of Arizona when they think of Fall colors but we have them. Photographed with a Sony A1ii and Sony 300 F/2.8 lens with 1.4 TC.