Actually, I have to check, I might not have had it zoomed out to 300mm so it's not quite an apples to apples, yeah, good point, it looked to me like he was shooting 400 2.8 but from a bit farther away from me, I think he was shooting one person to left of the last of the field seats (the section I was in, I did not have a press pass for this game, thus the 70-300L instead of big prime). All the same 400 2.8 and 300 f/5.6, if it were, would certainly give a different background. I was closer (which helps BG blur) but used less focal length and smaller aperture. Anyway whatever the case using a 400 2.8 instead of a 70-300L you will generally get the BG more blurred out shooting the former (and a even with a 300 2.8 too).
Will Patterson wrote:
Hmm, interesting what you say about the fast AF. I went to my local camera store with my 1D X and asked to try out one of these lenses. I shot with it around the inside of the store and then outside on a nice sunny day, and the AF was one of the first things I noticed with how slow it was. I'd twist the focus ring to MFD, then point the lens at something very far away, activate the AF, and it would take a while to get there and lock on. No where NEAR a 300 2.8 IS's AF speed. I actually decided right there not to purchase it for that reason alone. My 70-200 II is about three times faster....Show more →
hmm I just did a very sloppy little test in backyard and they both seemed fast, quick test not sure which is faster certainly one did not seems 3x different than the other by any remote means, on a 5D3 jumping focus from some leaves to a tree trunk and back and forth (both targets not all that far apart in distance) and then when I had them jump from something really close in out to the tree trunk the 300 2.8 IS actually was kinda slow at that long throw change and the 70-300L did it noticeably faster actually (the close subject was a bit close for a typical real world sports scenario so perhaps the most relevant test in this case)
anyway not much of a test, really but whatever the case I certainly didn't get any impression that it was sluggish in comparison
Thanks for the link Andy. I've been curious about the 70-300L for some time, but was kind of put off by the initial price point. I've been shooting sports with the 70-200 f/4L IS since it came out back around 2007 and have been very happy with it. At the time its AF was faster and I was getting better AF consistency from it than with the f/2.8 IS version. And it works pretty well with the 1.4x TC. But from the reviews I've read about the 70-300, it seems to surpass the f/4L IS + 1.4x TC combo. Just wish it was still f/4 at 200mm. I have a 300 f/4L IS that I hardly use, so perhaps I should sell it and give the 70-300 a shot...
rscheffler wrote:
Thanks for the link Andy. I've been curious about the 70-300L for some time, but was kind of put off by the initial price point. I've been shooting sports with the 70-200 f/4L IS since it came out back around 2007 and have been very happy with it. At the time its AF was faster and I was getting better AF consistency from it than with the f/2.8 IS version. And it works pretty well with the 1.4x TC. But from the reviews I've read about the 70-300, it seems to surpass the f/4L IS + 1.4x TC combo. Just wish it was still f/4 at 200mm. I have a 300 f/4L IS that I hardly use, so perhaps I should sell it and give the 70-300 a shot......Show more →
Oh it easily surpasses the 70-200 f/4 IS + 1.4x TC, much faster AF and better image quality.
And contrary to CL's guesses in that link that it's plasticky and poorly sealed, it's rather substantial and heavy for a variable 70-300L, fully weather sealed, and one of the few Canon lenses that makes full use of the new 5D3/1DX ultra-precision AF (at least with center point in stills, probably not for other points and not sure about for AI Servo). HMm someone there says PRM gives it props, not bad to get props from him.
Although the AF on the 70-200 f/4 IS tested faster than on my 70-200 2.8 non-IS on some made up tests, for some reason it would sometimes do this slow thing where it sort of freeze now and then at inopportune times here and there and my 2.8 non-IS did not. f/4 was also not good for night at less than pro fields or for indoors, once I stopped doing indoors I did switch to f/4 IS though since it was nice for travel and general stuff and I could get by with it for a wide field day lens and I sold the 2.8 non-IS+70-300 nonL combo for it. FOr pure sports I liked the 2,8 non-IS better.
I recently sold the f/4 IS and have just the 70-300L now. TC swapping is a lot more time consuming than lens swapping and it's a real pain, nice to have the TC built in as it were. You do lose fixed f/4 which means if you use M mode you are locked at f/5.6 across entire range though. It's a great general purpose lens, compact enough to fix in cargo shorts pocket and stash away on vacations, has nice built-in reach and size for times shooting with no press pass, it was sharper at 70mm a trace sharper at 200mm less sharp at 135mmm noticeably sharper 201mm+ compared to f/4 IS and f/4 IS+TC.
Ideally I'd still pair a big lens with a 70-200 2.8 and not an f/4 IS or 70-300 for pure sports shooting, but it's enough to get by, the AF is very good and same for image quality, it's only the aperture that is slow and variable. And for the times when you might want a single lens solution well the 70-200 just isn't enough at all for field stuff and with the TC on those AF more slowly and have worse image quality (well have not tried the 2.8 IS II to be fair) so it might be best for that (some say sigma 100-300 f/4 is nice though?).
At one point I used a 300 f/4 non-IS. Nice and light and easy to wield (the 300 2.8 IS is harder to start and stop on a dime due to the mass of it). Slower and not quite as good AF as the 300 2.8 IS though and f/4 is rough on poorly lit fields.
I tried it once at a camera store, and it seemed to work very nicely. An aspect of it I didn't like so much is its girth compared to the 70-200 f/4L IS, but could probably live with it in my already tightly packed camera bag. I also noted Roger's blog findings showing it to be among the new higher precision AF lenses. This in part renewed my interest in it because I have noticed AF inconsistency with the 70-200 f/4L IS.
I guess I'm trying to get away from TC swapping. I hardly use a TC now anyway when covering sports, and will instead crop, which works OK with a higher MP camera such as the 1DIV. And I'm eager to try the 200-400, which by the sounds of it from some comments at SS, the built-in TC is very nicely implemented. If the 200-400 becomes available relatively soon, I'll probably just stick with the 70-200 f/4L IS for the wide end and still bring along a 1.4x TC for general travel photos..
Thanks for the photos, Skibum. I was playing with the 70-300mm L yesterday and I'm pretty impressed with it. Edge performance is much worse than the 70-200mm but it's rare that I would notice or care. Given how rarely I use my Nikon 70-200mm and how rarely I actually use its full capability (i.e., f/2.8), the 70-300 L would seem like a good alternative if I switched to Canon. (Still on the fence about that...)
I tried it once at a camera store, and it seemed to work very nicely. An aspect of it I didn't like so much is its girth compared to the 70-200 f/4L IS, but could probably live with it in my already tightly packed camera bag. I also noted Roger's blog findings showing it to be among the new higher precision AF lenses. This in part renewed my interest in it because I have noticed AF inconsistency with the 70-200 f/4L IS.
I guess I'm trying to get away from TC swapping. I hardly use a TC now anyway when covering sports, and will instead crop, which works OK with a higher MP camera such as the 1DIV. And I'm eager to try the 200-400, which by the sounds of it from some comments at SS, the built-in TC is very nicely implemented. If the 200-400 becomes available relatively soon, I'll probably just stick with the 70-200 f/4L IS for the wide end and still bring along a 1.4x TC for general travel photos.....Show more →
yeah it's a little bit pudgy and a touch heavier but OTOH it's noticeably shorter
i'm not sure the high precision lens modes come into play as much on 1D4 as compared to 5D3/1DX, I forget, certainly not with the 5D2 or 7D
yeah the 200-400 with a built-in TC sounds pretty awesome, gonna be a very hefty and $$$$ lens though, but surely awesome, the TC can also be designed 100% with this single optical design in mind too
fhammond wrote:
Thanks for the photos, Skibum. I was playing with the 70-300mm L yesterday and I'm pretty impressed with it. Edge performance is much worse than the 70-200mm but it's rare that I would notice or care. Given how rarely I use my Nikon 70-200mm and how rarely I actually use its full capability (i.e., f/2.8), the 70-300 L would seem like a good alternative if I switched to Canon. (Still on the fence about that...)
I'm actually surprised that you found the edge performance much worse than on the 70-200mm, i've been impressed with the edges on the 70-300L even on FF (I use it a lot for general and landscape photography where I do care about edges a great deal), the nikon 70-200 must have some insane edge performance then.
I did another comparison and confirmed the results. The 70-200 is noticeably better than the 70-300, even at F8. I did the test using the D4 and the Nikon 70-200, since I wanted the comparison shots to be taken at about the same time. I'm pretty sure the Canon and Nikon 70-200s are pretty close in performance and the resolution difference between the 1D X and the D4 should be enough to mess with the results.
skibum5 wrote:
yeah it's a little bit pudgy and a touch heavier but OTOH it's noticeably shorter
i'm not sure the high precision lens modes come into play as much on 1D4 as compared to 5D3/1DX, I forget, certainly not with the 5D2 or 7D
yeah the 200-400 with a built-in TC sounds pretty awesome, gonna be a very hefty and $$$$ lens though, but surely awesome, the TC can also be designed 100% with this single optical design in mind too
According to Roger's tests, the 1DIV sits on its own between the 5DIII (and likely 1DX) and the rest of the EOS line up for AF precision with the newest Canon lenses (well, at least those he tested).
