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 p.2 #10 · Canon 70-200mm f4L II IS on Sony? | |
Hi all - reporting back on my further tests of a Canon 70-200mm f4L II IS on a Sony A7RIII with a Sigma MC-11. This is the second copy I received from LensRentals, the first one not performing properly as I previously reported.
In short, the lens is fantastic from 100mm to 200mm. At 135mm, it equals my Batis 135mm by f5.6. At 170mm setting (equal to 180mm Voigtlander), the Canon equals or slightly betters the Voigtlander 180mm f4.5 APO by f5.6. It maintains its incredible sharpness to 200mm.
As the LensRentals tests show, at 70mm, the newest Canon 70-200mm f4IS II L is at its weakest. It equals my very good Sony 24-105mm f4, by f11. At 85mm, it's about a draw with the Sony 24-105mm, with the Sony's extreme corners being better, but the Canon otherwise slightly sharper by f8.
These comparisons were all done on a tripod, self timer of 5 seconds, tripod collar for the Canon 70-200mm f4.
A couple of other comments:
For portrait use, in the series of images I did of my son in a pretty dark hotel room, ISO 4000, 1/125 of a second, f4, it renders and performs beautifully, using Eye AF with Firmware 3.01.
Autofocus on the Canon zoom is excellent for landscapes using single shot focus, center spot. Very accurate. Manual focus is a complete pleasure as well. Autofocus only works, however, in the center of the image (about the center third when using the 3 x 3 gridlines), and a bit above and below the center grid. Continuous autofocus and eye autofocus also work very well in the center region. Probably not as good as my Sony 24-105mm, but very good to excellent. I did not try to track action because that's not a relevant criteria for me, but my guess is that it would track fine in continuous autofocus to about 5-10 feet from the camera, using 3 or 5 fps continuous shooting.
Image stabilization - as others have reported on this forum and elsewhere, with the MC-11, and a Canon that has lens image stabilization, you can only use the len's image stabilization. You cannot choose between the camera's and len's stabilization. The lens image stabilization was good, but I didn't thoroughly test it. I was able to consistently handhold landscape infinity focus images at 200mm at 1/90 of a second so that the results were to my eye indistinguishable from a tripod (although I didn't do a direct comparison), which is, for me, at least, very good. I did not try at 1/60th or 1/45th.
Now the negative - As Roger Cicala at lens rentals consistently reports, no zoom is perfect. From 70mm to about 100mm, the Canon zoom was decentered or titled on the entire right side/edge and especially in the lower right corner, with it being worse at 70mm, and disappearing by about 100mm. At 135mm setting, the Canon's upper left corner (not just the extreme corner) was materially softer. At the 135mm setting, the upper left corner was essentially perfect, however, when stopped down to f8 and excellent by f5.6, so there may have been something else going on.
I am sending this lens back to LR because the rental period is over, and will next test the Canon 70-300mm f4-f5.6L zoom before deciding which to purchase. If I had received this 70-200mm sample from a retailer, I probably would have exchanged it given the significant decentering/tilting of the lower right corner and right side from 70mm - 100mm. It's also possible that this lens was slightly damaged by previous rentals. The 70-200mm lenses are notorious for being rented a lot for weddings, etc.
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All 70-200 lenses f4 or f2.8 are great no matter the brand except old Sigma versions. I used to have Canon 70-200 2.8 non IS on 5D2, also had Nikon 70-200 f4 on D180 and now Sony 70-200 f4 on Sony A7R3. All great lenses. I was trying to say that native Sony lens will give you best AF performance. You get to photograph kids running around. Good luck with that using Canon lens through adapter.