It delivers incredible image stabilization, too, along with autofocus that squeezes every ounce of performance out of your camera whether its the original EOS R or the cutting-edge R5. And center sharpness is fantastic, even at 200mm, even though corner sharpness can be disappointing.

At f/2.8 there’s some fairly heavy vignetting that drastically reduces at f/4 with mild, practically unnoticeable, vignetting at f/5.6. This disappears completely by f/8.The industry is expected to add more than 220,000 wpm in new 200mm capacity in 2021. In total, 200mm fab capacity is expected to reach 6.4 million wpm, according to SEMI. 200mm fab capacity includes discretes, epi, LEDs, MEMS, and semiconductors. Despite the migration toward 300mm fabs, 200mm plants didn’t disappear. On the contrary, a large number of chipmakers continued to produce chips in older 200mm fabs. Today, many vendors also make chips in older 150mm and 100mm fabs. Canon EOS R5 + Canon RF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM (131mm, 1/6 sec, f/8, ISO100) (Image credit: James Artaius)

Over the years, chipmakers migrated to larger wafer sizes. By moving to larger wafer sizes, vendors produced 2.2X the number of dies per wafer, enabling them to reduce their manufacturing costs. The RF 70-200mm f/4L is a bit of a tale of two halves. On the one hand, center sharpness is uniformly excellent –even shooting at the full 200mm extension, which is where telephotos often fall short. A new 200mm foundry player, Key Foundry, entered the market in September after acquiring the foundry business from MagnaChip.

Dimensions can be a bit nebulous when you just read them out. So to put them into context, not only can you stand the RF 70-200mm f/4L upright in your normal camera bag –you can also mount it to your camera and put the whole thing into a small sling bag.And that's just crazy.

The broad zoom ring occupies most of the barrel, meaning it falls naturally to hand during shooting. It rotates through approximately 90 degrees from the wide to telephoto positions, meaning no shift in grip is required to access the full zoom range. It’s a little stiff in operation, with a noticeable increase in force required to get past the 100mm point, but this doesn’t hamper composition in practical use. The smoothly rotating manual focus ring is placed further forwards, and activates a focus-by-wire mechanism. Olympus 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3: Autofocus KLA, Onto, and others sell inspection and metrology equipment, which is also critical in 200mm fabs. Inspection equipment finds defects in chips, while metrology tools are used to measure structures.

Olympus 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3: Verdict

Still, 200mm tools from the OEMs are in demand. “There is certainly a shortage of used 200mm tool cores for refurbishment,” said David Haynes, managing director of strategic marketing at Lam Research. “But there remains a strong demand for 200mm equipment across many established applications in sensing, power, and RF. Demand for analog IC capacity for power management and specialized CMOS image sensor applications are particularly strong and driving customer demand. Similarly, we have seen increasing demand for discrete power device fabrication solutions, although these technologies continue to migrate to 300mm as demand grows.” Cityscapes and blue hour photography – I prefer to use lenses that give me nice sunstar effect and even less flare Lam has always continued to build new 200mm deposition, etch, and single wafer clean tools,” Lam’s Haynes said. “We have a proactive core acquisition program. But if we are unable to supply a refurbished tool, our team is positioned to provide a new product as an alternative.” The Panasonic Lumix G Leica 200mm lens has a range of fantastic features to improve its utility. It has several manual and autofocus control buttons that make focusing a simple process. In addition, the lens also comes with a 1.4x teleconverter which can boost its focal distance to 280mm.

The Sigma measures 8.1 by 3.6 inches (HD), weighs about 2.9 pounds, and uses 77mm front filters. It's about the same size as the internally zooming Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II (7.9 by 3.5 inches, 2.3 pounds) and Panasonic Lumix 70-200mm F2.8 S Pro (8.2 by 3.7, 3.5 pounds), but it splits the weight difference. (Credit: Jim Fisher) In the semiconductor production flow, a silicon wafer maker develops an unprocessed or raw wafer based on various diameter sizes. Wafers are sold to chipmakers, which process them into chips in a fab. This features a perforated seal on the moving inner barrel, to enable air movement while keeping dust and moisture out. While we previously had reservations about whether water and particulates would penetrate the seals (especially if zooming in and out in wet or dusty conditions), we've yet to hear any such complaints about the f/2.8 version so we've no reason to believe it will be an issue here. Another way to look at capacity is fab production, which is measured by wafers per month (wpm). “In terms of wpm, we see a steady growth of about 3% to 4% each year from 2019 to 2021,” Dieseldorff said. The caveats, though, are familiar to the f/2.8 version: this lens is not compatible with teleconverters, which many photographers will find unfathomable for a 70-200mm, and it's very pricey compared to the (admittedly far less sophisticated) EF version.

Smooth Controls, Speedy Focus Motors

Made in 3 layers, all ULTRA3 pipes consist of an outer and inner layer of virgin material and a centre core made from recycled material. This creates a structured wall pipe, certified (Kitemarked) to BS EN 13476-2 (Structured Wall Piping Systems for PVC-U, PP & PE) and WIS 4-35-01.The inner core is manufactured from recycled material, which gives the pipe a minimum of 40% recycled material by mass and helps to achieve a lower carbon footprint for your project. Automatic distortion correction is advantageous for architectural shots. Olympus E-M5 II, 20mm, 1/400sec at f/6.3, ISO 200 Demand for new and used 200mm equipment is strong, but Canon has flexibility in our new equipment build schedule that allows us to increase specific unit volumes to meet market demand, while maintaining acceptable lead times,” said Doug Shelton, marketing manager at Canon. “New equipment is attractive to companies with well-defined budgets and litho system performance, productivity, functional, or product lifetime requirements. Lower-priced used equipment is attractive for customers seeking to minimize 200mm fab costs where lithography performance and output are not the main priorities. Risks associated with sourcing, refurbishing, installing, and supporting used lithography equipment can be minimized through a new tool equipment strategy.”