I dunno what I could say that a million others haven't already...maybe I could try to talk to other people like me, who were/are on the fence about buying such an expensive lens.
If you're a sharpness fan, which I am, this lens still outperforms everyone, even Sigma... the guys who have been cranking out those world-class Art lenses. The Sigma and Tamron version are fine, but if you want that extra ten percent sharpness, the Canon has it (albeit for a few hundred extra).
DC skyline... not full res, but you can see the sharpness pretty clearly I think. Shot at 200mm.
If you're the type to buy lenses for that "special something"... the bokeh or 'rendering' or whatever, this lens is famous for having beautiful background blur. So the out of focus areas are as pleasing as those wonderfully sharp focused areas.
funky bokeh balls, smooth transition to the blurry areas.
[ATTACH alt="you can see a hint of that bright ring "soap bubble" effect around the bokeh-blurred water drops."]1713141[/ATTACH]
you can see a hint of that bright ring "soap bubble" effect around the bokeh-blurred water drops.
If you need the autofocus to be responsive and quick, this lens 100% nails it, it just snaps into place instantly and almost silently. Super fast and accurate. It has a toggle for close vs. far focusing, but I've never had to use it. Regardless of setting, it just snaps into focus, even in low light. And it's stabilized, of course.
ok, so it's not a bird in flight. But I did have to rush to focus before he took off, and it just nailed it.
Stabilization works great, 1/100th of a second is fine in dim indoor environments. Notice how nicely it separates people from the background. It's the ideal portrait lens.
And if you've gotten third party lenses before and felt like the build quality was a bit of a letdown, like the rubber focus ring wants to come off or the lens vacuums up dust... you won't have that with this lens. The moving parts are all internal, so no gaps for dust to enter. The lens hood has a nice velvet coating that grabs dust before it hits the lens. The body feels like a fat steel pipe. You could probably cave in some skulls with it and still use it to snap photos.
pic unrelated to caving in skulls.
I actually had a horrifying moment where I put it on the roof of the car, underestimated the angle of the slope where I was parked, and it rolled right off... onto hard black tarmac. Bits of my camera flew off. But the lens was fine. Autofocused, nothing got misaligned, no soft spots or misfocusing. Nothing flew off the lens (not even the lens hood). I just scraped some white paint off of it.
Oh, and if you're Tony Northrup, the lens doesn't have focus breathing issues, at all.
This is your indoor sports lens, when you need something fast to deal with low light, and you're close enough that 200mm is fine. Shot wide open you can get people in focus nicely at f/2.8. And you can safely drop shutter speed to even 1/50th if the subject's not a fast mover.
So yeah, basically, it's the perfect lens, and the 70-200 focal length is very useful. If you've already purchased some $1000 lenses in the past, and have seen how nice they are compared to a budget lens... then see if you can talk yourself into spending $2,000. There's no reason you should have to buy another lens covered by this focal length, at least not for the next decade, assuming the autofocus doesn't wear out. Optically you can't get much better.
If you're a sharpness fan, which I am, this lens still outperforms everyone, even Sigma... the guys who have been cranking out those world-class Art lenses. The Sigma and Tamron version are fine, but if you want that extra ten percent sharpness, the Canon has it (albeit for a few hundred extra).
DC skyline... not full res, but you can see the sharpness pretty clearly I think. Shot at 200mm.
If you're the type to buy lenses for that "special something"... the bokeh or 'rendering' or whatever, this lens is famous for having beautiful background blur. So the out of focus areas are as pleasing as those wonderfully sharp focused areas.
funky bokeh balls, smooth transition to the blurry areas.
[ATTACH alt="you can see a hint of that bright ring "soap bubble" effect around the bokeh-blurred water drops."]1713141[/ATTACH]
you can see a hint of that bright ring "soap bubble" effect around the bokeh-blurred water drops.
If you need the autofocus to be responsive and quick, this lens 100% nails it, it just snaps into place instantly and almost silently. Super fast and accurate. It has a toggle for close vs. far focusing, but I've never had to use it. Regardless of setting, it just snaps into focus, even in low light. And it's stabilized, of course.
ok, so it's not a bird in flight. But I did have to rush to focus before he took off, and it just nailed it.
Stabilization works great, 1/100th of a second is fine in dim indoor environments. Notice how nicely it separates people from the background. It's the ideal portrait lens.
And if you've gotten third party lenses before and felt like the build quality was a bit of a letdown, like the rubber focus ring wants to come off or the lens vacuums up dust... you won't have that with this lens. The moving parts are all internal, so no gaps for dust to enter. The lens hood has a nice velvet coating that grabs dust before it hits the lens. The body feels like a fat steel pipe. You could probably cave in some skulls with it and still use it to snap photos.
pic unrelated to caving in skulls.
I actually had a horrifying moment where I put it on the roof of the car, underestimated the angle of the slope where I was parked, and it rolled right off... onto hard black tarmac. Bits of my camera flew off. But the lens was fine. Autofocused, nothing got misaligned, no soft spots or misfocusing. Nothing flew off the lens (not even the lens hood). I just scraped some white paint off of it.
Oh, and if you're Tony Northrup, the lens doesn't have focus breathing issues, at all.
This is your indoor sports lens, when you need something fast to deal with low light, and you're close enough that 200mm is fine. Shot wide open you can get people in focus nicely at f/2.8. And you can safely drop shutter speed to even 1/50th if the subject's not a fast mover.
So yeah, basically, it's the perfect lens, and the 70-200 focal length is very useful. If you've already purchased some $1000 lenses in the past, and have seen how nice they are compared to a budget lens... then see if you can talk yourself into spending $2,000. There's no reason you should have to buy another lens covered by this focal length, at least not for the next decade, assuming the autofocus doesn't wear out. Optically you can't get much better.
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