One thing I noted right away: its a rear focus design, so when focusing at near distance its not 300mm any more, maybe 220. When shot side-by-side with the 70-300 IS consumer lens at infinity, the fields of view are identical. Shoo them both focused at 4 feet away and the consumer lens is still 300mm (same field as the 300 f4) but the 70-300 L is looks more like 240mm.
Below are shots at the same 4 feet distance with the 70-300 IS consumer lens and the 70-300 IS L, both at 300mm.
I don't think looking at just one copy is enough to make a major impression, but I'm fairly underwhelmed. The IS is excellent. Its a bit sharper than the consumer grade 70-300. If other copies are no better than this one, though, I'll take the consumer zoom and keep the extra $1k.
Its a bit better resolution and contrast at the long end than the standard, but it also seems to vignette a bit more wide open (not something I care about much, but some do). I've never shot the Tamron, so no experience there at all.
I don't want to form an opinion on just one copy: this one may not be up to snuff and the ones coming next week better. But on 3 different cameras I'm just not $1,500 impressed yet. Maybe this copy just isn't what it should be.
RCicala wrote:
Its a bit better resolution and contrast at the long end than the standard, but it also seems to vignette a bit more wide open (not something I care about much, but some do). I've never shot the Tamron, so no experience there at all.
I don't want to form an opinion on just one copy: this one may not be up to snuff and the ones coming next week better. But on 3 different cameras I'm just not $1,500 impressed yet. Maybe this copy just isn't what it should be.
hmm I don't understand why it is so fat and uses such large filters it if it still f/5 at 200mm like at the rest AND vignettes even more
Sir_Loin wrote: Glenn, thank you for the reminder. No zoom comparison shall be considered complete without 35-350L in the mix.
Peter, you forgot to ask him to compare the classic 35-350L as well if he has one lying about! I bet you do?
skibum5 wrote:
Is it really true that the US version ended up NOT including the tripod collar after all?
$1599 and not even including the collar?
No tripod collar included. The collar from the 28-300 fits perfectly, BTW.
And what, you guys don't want it compared to the 300 f2.8, too?
Seriously, I'll leave that to the real testers who have more patience than I do. Unless one of the techs gets bored next week and wants to do some comparisons. First I want to compare to a couple of more copies that are coming next week and make sure this just isn't a bad one.
I can say without hesitation that the 70-200 f4 and f2.8 are both sharper at 200 than this is, and, of course the 300 f4 is sharper at 300. I will try to do a 100-400 comparison, I think the new lens is really close to that, but again, I may just have a bad copy.
To be honest though, I have to say the L looks better to me on that comparison, by far (although the non-L also looks worse than I remember by far, maybe bad copy or bad focusing? or maybe because it was shot near MFD? Some lenses do turn starting turining to junk under 5' and especially right at the MFD).
It looks like either the target was slightly twisted or the bottom right on the L shows a touch of de-centering since it looks a little less sharp there than everywhere else.
