100-300 vs. 50-200+1.4TC: surprised!

luisflorit wrote:

Brian Wadie wrote:

I thought the following two shots may be of interest here. I've recently picked up a used 50-200mk1 to go with the 75-300 mk2 on my EM-1

The 50-200 is specifically aimed at my water sports uses where the weather sealing is a real boon.

Yesterday I was shooting Thundercat racing on our local beach at Boscombe Pier in Dorset and a couple of miles west there was P1 Powerboat racing off Bournemouth (why do these events always occur at the same time! )

In a lull in the Thundercats I spotted the P1s were racing so took shots with both the lenses, shooting across rather hazy water (heat and mist haze)

The results surprised me

75-300 at 300mm f6.7

50-200 at 200mm f5

both are un-resized crops

I know from earlier experiments that with the EC-14 on I would not have expected the 50-200 to be as good as the 75-300 at this distance but to my eye there is little or no difference even though the crop is a bit larger with the 50-200

The distance is around 1.4 to 2 miles (its 1.4 miles pier to pier but this is on the diagonal and I couldn't see whether the race was to the East or West side of the pier)

To be honest, not sure how to compare these pictures. The focal length is very different, as well as lighting, noise, etc. In addition, with more than 1 mile between you and the subject, lots of interference of the air can ruin your test.

Thanks for sharing!!

Cheers,

L.

for me the comparison was simple, even with all the problems you rightly make - could I identify the boats, see their numbers, see the people etc.

I'm a pragmatic photographer, I have a job to do and I want to know if my gear will do it, in this case the 50-200 does it as well as the 75-300 (making no claims of great images etc, I leave that to those who like to argue the minutiae of IQ and lpi resolution etc )

Its remarkable, as far as I am concerned, that at this distance and under these conditions I can read the text on the side of the lead boat in each shot.

Had I had the EC-14 on the 50-200 then the boat numbers would have been blurred and the image less useful