70-200 F4 L IS vs 2.8 IS, the 4 is better ¬_¬

mrk

mrk

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Perhaps I was a little brash with the thread title by using "better", maybe it would have been better to add suited after the word hehe :p
 
Soldato
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I'd guess that the f/4 is pretty rubbish at f/2.8 though :p I'm just not seeing "scary sharp" there.


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Yeah cos we all know that people view pics at 100% :p The point was that my resized images look just as sharp as your resized images at the start. I'll be waiting for your f/2.8 shot from your f/4 too :p
 
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is the 2.8 really so soft that it becomes a problem or is it just pixel peeping that makes it noticably soft?

Its really not a problem at all. Check out my shots up there which appear to be sharper than mrk's :p Its only if you're completely anal about sharpness that it becomes an issue. f/4 might be slightly sharper but it doesn't do f/2.8 which is why I bought it.
 

mrk

mrk

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You might remember my Duck shots from the 1st day of owning the 2.8 IS, those were the sharpest results I got, very clean and crisp but after the first day I could not get consistent sharp results below F4 even after changing from 350D to 40D and having the lens swapped for another one (though from the same store, only had a stock of 2 as well ). Either way for printing and weddings this inconsistent sharpness streak wasn't suitable for large prints and the weight was not suitable for events that last several hours carrying it around!

Perhaps the store I used had a soft batch but it defo was not "me" that was the problem because my shooting has not changed going from the 2.8 to 4 and I'm getting consistent sharpness throughout shots now compared to before.

Also as already mentioned the 4 has less flaring at F4 and less CA.
 
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Soldato
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Having used mine for events the weight is fine, unless you're a girl. I've also done 1 meter prints with it at f/13 or so and they looked great. Guess you had a duff copy or something because mine is very good. Still waiting on your f/2.8 from f/4 shots :p
 
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You might remember my Duck shots from the 1st day of owning the 2.8 IS, those were the sharpest results I got, very clean and crisp but after the first day I could not get consistent sharp results below F4 even after changing from 350D to 40D and having the lens swapped for another one (though from the same store, only had a stock of 2 as well ). Either way for printing and weddings this inconsistent sharpness streak wasn't suitable for large prints and the weight was not suitable for events that last several hours carrying it around!

Perhaps the store I used had a soft batch but it defo was not "me" that was the problem because my shooting has not changed going from the 2.8 to 4 and I'm getting consistent sharpness throughout shots now compared to before.

Also as already mentioned the 4 has less flaring at F4 and less CA.

Are you sure you weren't just expecting too much? Sharpness doesn't just depend on aperture, it also depends on the subject distance. If you take a photo of something 1ft away at f/2.8 its going to look extremely sharp compared to if you took a photo of the same object at 10ft away. Obviously this would be far most apparent at f/2.8 than f/4.
 

mrk

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1 keeper in 6.. I rated you so much highly than that :p

They were just messing around on the way to a mates house! the one I chose to keep was this:

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:)

Are you sure you weren't just expecting too much? Sharpness doesn't just depend on aperture, it also depends on the subject distance. If you take a photo of something 1ft away at f/2.8 its going to look extremely sharp compared to if you took a photo of the same object at 10ft away. Obviously this would be far most apparent at f/2.8 than f/4.

Well for £1200 My expectations were very high I will admit, I expected excellent results through and through and on the whole yes they were technically sharp but let down by flaring which meant shadow objects in a highlight surrounding looked "soft" due to the flaring around the edges giving a soft look to the image which went away At around F5. The F4 IS has none of the flaring problems which is why it looks sharper at that Av!

I tested my findings on common objects that anyone could replicate on so if you have the 2.8IS give this a shot, a piece of white paper with black standard sized text, focus on the text and take a shot at 2.8 and notice how the text looks soft due to the flaring around the edges of the text. Now look at the white paper, you can easily see the texture of the paper which proves the focus was spot on and sharp but of course the flaring gives the illusion of a soft result.

Use daylight, sunlight and flash and observe the differences, there's different levels of flaring that occurs on each!

On both the 2.8IS samples I had the flaring only went away above F4.
 
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mrk

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One thing I do love though is I no longer have to worry about dust specs on the sensor, I have changed lenses more times on the 40D than I ever did on the 350D and have less dust in there hehe :D
 
Soldato
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Well for £1200 My expectations were very high I will admit, I expected excellent results through and through and on the whole yes they were technically sharp but let down by flaring which meant shadow objects in a highlight surrounding looked "soft" due to the flaring around the edges giving a soft look to the image which went away At around F5. The F4 IS has none of the flaring problems which is why it looks sharper at that Av!

The 70-200 f/2.8IS @ f/4 is probably just as sharp as the 70-200 f/4 IS @ f/4,
you can't compare f/2.8 with f/4 just because they are both wide open. The wider the aperture the more bleeding will be apparent, thats the case with any lens.
 

mrk

mrk

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No, I didn't compare F4 vs F2.8 as wide open comparison, I compared F4 @ F4 vs F2.8 @ F4 and stated above that I found the F4 to be the better lens of the 2 for image quality in the above situations. Also stated the F2.8 was not suitable enough for proper work at F2.8 until you went to at least F4 to minimise the flaring.


That'll be due to f/4 as well I guess.

It does help but on the 350d I had 2 specs (give or take 2-3 each time) every few weeks that would lob themselves onto the sensor which were visible as a soft of soft feathered "splodge" (?!) in photos with sky or a plain surface and only went away after a sensor swipe! This was at F4 btw but of course you'd only be able to tell if the image had a large area of light colour like skies and so on.

Still keeping the sensor cleaning kit just incase though.
 
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