New 560mm minimum focus distance

Does anyone know what the minimum focus distance of the new 560mm will be?
This could the the deal breaker for me I've had a look and the minimum focus for the Nikon 500mm F4 is 4 metres, I'm guessing the 560mm will need to focus at about 6m to make it a viable birding lens.

Sigma 500mm f/4.5 is also 4 metres.

Best regards

it's based on a telescope... I'm thinking 4 meters min... under six for sure.
to be fair a short extension tube is what many pro use with tele's to get in closer...
If I was up close birding, I'd want the 200mm with af 1.7 and a short extension tube combined...
I've tried this with the 100 macro and it does focus so I'd think the 200mm would work... anything f4 or slower..I dunno.. kiss af goodbye I suspect.
I know you don't need the extension tube with a macro, but I tried it to see if it would work because I was hoping to buy the 200 da, but life gets in the way sometimes and I'm still waiting for it... I tried it with my sigma 400 but af no go unless full bright sun and image quality not impressive!

If it's based on a telescope....... it should focus on the
moon without any problems

Well the games afoot. Sony have announced a dust and moisture resistant 500mm f/4 along with a new FF DSLR. Also 4 metre min focus. So there will be plenty of competition for peoples long lens money.

Best regards

gotta remember the 500 on a ff is like 500 fov..
550 on a 1.5 crop aps-c sensor.....
do the math....

Thats 330mm equivalent The Pentax 300mm is £900 .......... The Sony equivalent for FF is HOW MUCH!!!!

My Tasco scope needs extreme care to focus on the moon through the K100d, (not yet tried it with the K7's brighter viewfinder/liveview). So it's not a foregone conclusion.

Zoomed out to 1000mm (f16) it's possible, at 4000mm (f64) diffraction limiting means nothing come to focus via the camera.

No doubt the 560 will outclass my Tasco by a huge margin. Better start saving...

I cant see what the problem is with the minimum focus distance, 560mm will give you a decent sized shot of a Sparrow or similar at about 5 metres, cut that down to 4 and you'd struggle to get the bird in the frame, the only thing it will stop you doing is filling the frame with anything smaller such as butterflies etc.

If the lens had been a zoom then min. focus would have really mattered.

We need a 300-500 f4-f5.6 zoom, minimum focus of 2 metres at 300, also with matching 2x converter, all SDM and weather sealed of course and priced at around £1500 + £150 for the T/C

I agree, but I've read that "The lens is optimized for rendering distant subjects" and "The DA 560mm is based on optics used in astronomical telescopes" so what if the minimum focus distance is 10 metres?

I would imagine astronomical telescopes need to be particularly rigorous in removing chromatic aberration, so that sounds promising. It does just say "based on" though, so we'll need to see what we get when there's more detail about.

Like all lenses, the 560mm will be aimed at a particular purpose and balanced up accordingly.

ummn.. I calculated the 550 on a pentax aps-c to be 880 mm equivalent..

You could always crop the Sony images to get the same....

(Or use an APSC Sony of course!)

Then the lens will lose half of its prospective market starting with me!

I don't think there wil be a long queue .. the Sony is variously being quoted as US$13,000 - $18,000