70-300IS vs. 70-200F4L: What would you do?

lx200 said:

F4, at 200mm is SLLLOOOWWWWW. There is no two ways around it. If
you have a shutter speed of 1/250th when zoomed at 200mm, you are
etiher shooting on a sunny day, or you your ISO set to 1600.
That's why everybody wants the F2.8 IS...... it's a stop faster AND
it has IS. The F4 has neither, and is quite limited as a result.

--
http://dogluver.smugmug.com

Click to expand...

Please, please, please.
Where I live there are a lot of cloudy days.
I often use the 70-200 above f/4, 1/1250sec, ISO400

--
William



http://www.hasselo.net/gallery/

wchen said:

I don't have a 70-300mm IS, but from some images on internet, I
found the Chromatic Aberration is not acceptable for me. Please
follow the link

http://www.pbase.com/2bruce/image/50647265

The purple band on the tree stem is as wide as 6/7 pixels. While I
almost have 0 CA from my 70-200 f4L. In terms of color rendition,
the 70-200 f4L is superior too. So in my opinion, you can't get
extra 200-300m + IS for free. There is a trade off on image
quality. Thanks

Click to expand...

I haven't noticed much CA on my 70-300. It's actually better in that regard than my 50/1.4 prime, believe it or not.

Anyway, I'll bet that bird pick looks better at 300mm with a little CA (easily fixable in post) than it would have looked at 200mm with no CA. My 2 cents.

how can the 70-300 sabstitute the 85 1.8?

f1.8 capture SOOOOOOOO much more light.
the 85 is SOOOOO much faster focusing
the viewfinder is SOOO much brighter in the 85!

Tom said:

Me too, should get the 70-30IS next week ) Can't decide whether
I want to buy the 17-85IS or 24-105IS, or keep my 24/2.8, 50/1.8,
and 85/1.8.

If the 70-300IS is "close" to 85/1.8 quality at 85mm, I'll probably
sell the prime (to pay for the Sigma 105 macro I just ordered). I
find it soft to about f4, so why change lenses if the quality is
there.

--
Tom
http://www.pbase.com/photoman

Click to expand...

I don't see a difference looking at the same object in good light. Yes the 85 is "brighter" in the shade (especially at f1.8).. but I hardly ever use 1.8-2.8 because of softness. With the 3 stops you gain with IS, doesn't that get it's f4-f4.5 (at 85mm) down to a theoretical f2.8, and therefore just as bright?

I plan on doing many tests before I decide which I prefer. Having both makes it easy to decide.

--
Tom
http://www.pbase.com/photoman

SchnellerGT said:

I don't travel with a tripod and my hands aren't known to be the
most steady in the world.

Every time I have my mind set on the 70-300 IS, someone here posts
something like, "The F4L just has better contrast, punch, and color
saturation because it's an L" and I just get torn all over again!

Click to expand...

To make the choice even harder - have you considered the Sigma 100-300/4 EX HSM? From what I've read, it's comparable to the 70-200/4L.

Personally I got tired of the lousy 75-300 III USM (non-IS) I use sometimes, and am looking at the following quality telephoto choices:

• Sigma 100-300/4
• Canon 70-200/2.8 + TC
• Canon 70-300/4-5.6 IS

I did look at the more affordable yet still superb EF 70-200/4 but considering its short reach am inclined towards the non-IS 2.8 which can take converters whenever needed (making it a really flexible lens I'd say).

Now the Sigma and the new Canon also got my attention for their lower price, longer reach and better brightness or IS - and reportedly excellent image quality.

Still haven't decided. Don't like the conspicuous big white L, but also hate the figures 4-5.6 on the 70-300...

--
Starting a gallery of my country:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania/images01

i'm going to ask Santa for one. hopefully the price will come down a bit by then.

IS does NOT make the image brighter... it lets you shoot at a slower shutter speed, thats all. An F4 lens is still only producing an image with half the brightness of an F2.8 image.... it will just shake less as you look at it !

--
http://dogluver.smugmug.com

I'm still trying to understand this. "IS" doesn't make it brighter, but gaining 2-3 stops by shooting 2-3 speed "stops" faster, essentially makes the image just as bright. If you are in "A" mode, the camera/lens combo will expose to give you the same "brightness" in either image, right?

--
Tom
http://www.pbase.com/photoman

Tom said:

I'm still trying to understand this. "IS" doesn't make it
brighter, but gaining 2-3 stops by shooting 2-3 speed "stops"
faster, essentially makes the image just as bright. If you are in
"A" mode, the camera/lens combo will expose to give you the same
"brightness" in either image, right?

Click to expand...

IS is your invisible tripod. Nothing more, nothing less.
--
Uzi
http://www.pbase.com/uyoeli

infinitely massive tripod ....gives infinite number of stops...

(but that does not necesarily mean that
there is a linear relationship between
steadyness and stops gained)

You will never fall for "tripod with 5 effective stop gain" marketting talk, nor would you ever think a tripod turns your slow lens into a fast lens. Not sure why IS marketting talk is so successful (and confusing to many)...
--
Uzi
http://www.pbase.com/uyoeli

Which is why IS is so darned great. It even works during earthquakes, which would likely even make astronomical observatories a bit shaky.

UziY said:

You will never fall for "tripod with 5 effective stop gain"
marketting talk, nor would you ever think a tripod turns your slow
lens into a fast lens. Not sure why IS marketting talk is so
successful (and confusing to many)...
--
Uzi
http://www.pbase.com/uyoeli

Click to expand...

"...LOOK....
mr Canon Engineer....."
=======================

What I want...... is a 300mm to 400mm lens..
f2.0 .......... or so.....

NO measureable 'chromatics' ... no distortions....

that minimum focuses at 2-3 feet...
with a modern I.S. .panning...tripods.... memory ... etc...

about 6"-7" long at most....

---------
and......PAY ATTENTION....!!!

I want ALL the .... MEASURED .... MTF lines to merge at the top of the graph... .. ALL OF 'EM!!

so clean ... and close to the top...
.. I can re-use the paper for more MTF curve plotting...

now... dont come outa that room 'til you are done!!!

.....

and do it for $750... RETAIL

plus .... allow for a ... regular... $100 rebate in your cost ....

=============
.....and now ....back to .... reality...
=============

I have to say...

the BOKEH .. in this lens is pretty good...
...

and as a tele seems to do ...it puts a background...
...uh...IN THE BACKGROUND...

walking by on the street... I.S. lets you do this easily...
this example of a safflower...



from my main page
http://www.xprt.net/~2me/

wchen said:

If you download the original file to your computer, open it with
any image processing program and zoom in to the tree stem. You will
see 6-7 pixel wide purple/ violet band. Frankly, it's visible for
me even at reduced size. BTW, it's even worse, since it happens in
the middle of the image, insead of on the very edge.

Click to expand...

at least it is only realy showing there in an out of focus area, even some of the L's sometimes have a bunch of CA in out of focus areas against skies.

that said, this lens does have more CA than a 100-300L at 300mm, if still not really all that bad. stuff like 17-85 IS and such seem to have much worse CA, much worse.