takowasa Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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jasonpatrick wrote:
The 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II looks better out at the edges and corners. The 200mm prime and the zoom look similar in the center. What you're getting with this lens is a smaller profile and lighter lens with excellent IQ. The price is just over 1/4 what you'd pay for a used 70-200 II zoom. If it's what you want, it's an excellent choice. 200mm with no IS could limit your potential use though.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=687&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=3&API=0&LensComp=245&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0
The zoom is sharper in the corners only wide open, and I don't think we're looking for sharp corners wide open at 200mm f/2.8 very often (quite the opposite, really), and I would argue that we're never looking for that in portraiture. However, the prime is brighter (higher t-stop). By f/5.6, when the corners might matter, the prime matches the zoom.
So, I would not cite resolution as an advantage of the zoom. Rather, I'd say the zoom offers 70-200mm and IS, rounded aperture blades, but at the expense of a slightly darker photo for a given exposure, and considerably greater size, weight, and price.
An important consideration that is rarely discussed is flare. Here, both lenses perform more or less comparably, in my opinion, at least in this one test:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Lens-Flare.aspx?Lens=687&Camera=453&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0&LensComp=245&CameraComp=453&FLI=3&API=0
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