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Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

shredmasta
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Hi! I ended up purchasing a used 70-200mm lens, and when shooting at f/2.8 at a flat object, the image is very blurry. When I go to f/4.5 or higher, the image is suddenly nice and sharp. I'm concerned that I bought a defective version; I'm aware that when shooting wide open, the image will not be as sharp, but it looks like someone bumped into me as I was taking the photo. Shutter speed was at least 1/500 so there should be no blur as far as I'm concerned.

Is this something I should be worried about, and return the lens?Any advice?

Sep 16, 2024 at 04:46 PM

osidesurfer
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Did you shoot from a tripod to eliminate any fore/aft movement on your part? is the focusing limiter in the wrong position? Also, did to try manually focusing using 10x to see if it is sharp?

Sep 16, 2024 at 04:55 PM

Mike Jacks0n
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

My Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM is very sharp wide open. There is a little improvement at f/3.2, but I don't feel required to shoot it there like I did with the original Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM.

Before I say return it, post an example of what you are seeing. Show a simple shot of the subject wide open and then 1 stop stopped down. There should be a small difference, but not a lot.

Sep 16, 2024 at 05:02 PM

shredmasta
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

I did another test shooting from a tripod with a self timer, and I see the same results unfortunately. Focusing limited looks correct, and I did tests with auto/manual focus as well. I appreciate your suggestions!

osidesurfer wrote:
Did you shoot from a tripod to eliminate any fore/aft movement on your part? is the focusing limiter in the wrong position? Also, did to try manually focusing using 10x to see if it is sharp?

Sep 16, 2024 at 05:31 PM

shredmasta
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Hi, thanks for sharing your experience! I’ve noticed after f/4, it gets a bit sharper, but I guess I’m just surprised at how blurry the image is at f/2.8.

I shot at f/2.8 and compared that to f/4, and I’ll upload the results soon. As I mentioned above in my reply to the other commenter, I did tests with autofocus as well as manual focus to eliminate that as a possible variable.

Thanks again!

Mike Jacks0n wrote:
My Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM is very sharp wide open. There is a little improvement at f/3.2, but I don't feel required to shoot it there like I did with the original Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM.

Before I say return it, post an example of what you are seeing. Show a simple shot of the subject wide open and then 1 stop stopped down. There should be a small difference, but not a lot.

Sep 16, 2024 at 05:34 PM

MintMar
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Should be pretty sharp wide open. You may try to focus it on live view if you're not shooting RF, to remove any and all focus issues (on DSLR the lens may be front/back focusing a little). So if you find out it's just an AF problem, either try MFA, or have the lens recalibrated, or return it (unless your camera is a problem).

The lens may be decentered, and this might become less apparent when stopped down. Either shoot a brick wall wide open perpendicularly as best as you can and look for any non uniformity in the sides of the image, alternatively find a scene like this and try to find inconsistencies in the sides (this is 85L, I focused in the middle orange mark):

Sep 16, 2024 at 05:55 PM

lighthound
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

You didn't say what body you're using, but if it's a mirrorless and you're using a filter, try it without any filter.

Sep 16, 2024 at 08:02 PM

shredmasta
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

First, that's a great photo! I should have gone more into detail in my original post, and I did play around with viewfinder vs. live view as well, and didn't notice anything different. Camera is brand new as well.

MintMar wrote:
Should be pretty sharp wide open. You may try to focus it on live view if you're not shooting RF, to remove any and all focus issues (on DSLR the lens may be front/back focusing a little). So if you find out it's just an AF problem, either try MFA, or have the lens recalibrated, or return it (unless your camera is a problem).

The lens may be decentered, and this might become less apparent when stopped down. Either shoot a brick wall wide open perpendicularly as best as you can and look for any non uniformity in the sides of...Show more →

Fair play - it's a Canon R5, no filters - just the RF --> EF adapter.

lighthound wrote:
You didn't say what body you're using, but if it's a mirrorless and you're using a filter, try it without any filter.

Sep 16, 2024 at 08:21 PM

shredmasta
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

I completely forgot to upload photos...so here is a video instead! There are three photos shot at f/2.8/4/8 @ 200mm, 1/1000s, and ISO 100/160/640:

https://imgur.com/8HVYbTs (May need to copy/paste URL)

Sep 16, 2024 at 09:24 PM

fraibert
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Just another thing to check/diagnose: have you tried with IS both on and off?

Sep 17, 2024 at 12:04 AM

shredmasta
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Indeed I have - thanks for the tip!

fraibert wrote:
Just another thing to check/diagnose: have you tried with IS both on and off?

Just wanted to let you know I posted a video above!

Mike Jacks0n wrote:
My Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM is very sharp wide open. There is a little improvement at f/3.2, but I don't feel required to shoot it there like I did with the original Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM.

Before I say return it, post an example of what you are seeing. Show a simple shot of the subject wide open and then 1 stop stopped down. There should be a small difference, but not a lot.

Sep 17, 2024 at 09:03 AM

moondigger
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Based on the information you relayed here, and the video, it seems like your lens is defective. Return it for a replacement (if possible) or a refund.

Sep 17, 2024 at 09:10 AM

RustyRus
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Yea I would run from that lens

Where did you buy it?

Sep 17, 2024 at 09:19 AM

shredmasta
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

Return initiated. Bought from a very trusted source on eBay.

Sep 17, 2024 at 11:50 AM

Mike Jacks0n
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

+1... Definitely has a problem.

Sep 17, 2024 at 12:37 PM

MintMar
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

shredmasta wrote:
I completely forgot to upload photos...so here is a video instead! There are three photos shot at f/2.8/4/8 @ 200mm, 1/1000s, and ISO 100/160/640:

https://imgur.com/8HVYbTs (May need to copy/paste URL)

Well, not a great scene for the decentering to stand out, but the lens is definitely a mess. I take it that you focused on the traffic sign and since you said you had RF, we can rule out the FF/BF style AF error. On the f/4 pictures I find the pale violet-brown wall on the right even tad sharper than the traffic sign, which is weird, and there's no symmetric sharpness on the left (the cars).

I woud say the lens has been well dropped.

I should know, I dropped mine from about a meter height on ceramic floor with the 6D attached. Given the circumstances it fell neatly, basically flat along the lens axis. It would not AF anymore, but still was quite sharp. I had it serviced and it works again. Well I bought it second hand and the drop fix cost me half of the second hand price, so overall I got it for a price of Mk3 in second hand.

Even after this fall and service it is a league sharper wide open compared to your pictures.

The 6D survived without any problems.

Sep 17, 2024 at 06:56 PM

MintMar
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

This is an 1:1 example crop of how it should look like. This is shot wide open with a TC, so it's no longer the best sharpness the lens can offer.

This is web sized full image shot on 200D without a TC, 200mm wide open, tried my best to focus on the band

Sep 17, 2024 at 07:14 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM lens - soft? Please help

MintMar wrote:
Well, not a great scene for the decentering to stand out, but the lens is definitely a mess. I take it that you focused on the traffic sign and since you said you had RF, we can rule out the FF/BF style AF error. On the f/4 pictures I find the pale violet-brown wall on the right even tad sharper than the traffic sign, which is weird, and there's no symmetric sharpness on the left (the cars).

I woud say the lens has been well dropped.

I should know, I dropped mine from about a meter height on ceramic floor...Show more →

In the video, the wide open image shows pretty distinctive smearing of the out of focus bokeh balls in the foreground foliage that suggests 'decentering' of some sort. It's probably fixable by Canon, but in this situation I'd return it, rather than taking the gamble that the fix might not be 100%. And anyway, the cost to repair shouldn't be the OP's, rather the seller's, to which they would naturally have to agree.

There was a thread maybe a year or two ago here where someone was shooting indoor sports like volleyball with a recently acquired second hand copy of this lens (IIRC) and had similar, though less extreme wide open softness. He sent it to Canon and IMO it was better but still showed signs of the issue.

Sep 17, 2024 at 10:47 PM


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