70-200 F2.8 IS or 100-400 IS

[ayhani]

I have 28-135 IS lens. Which lens should be the second lens for you?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

The 70-200IS is a better lens than the 100-400IS, but the longer lens is still excellent. You would have less overlap with your existing lens. If the 200-400 range is something useful to you, go for the longer lens - cheaper, too.

Regards,

[GenEOS]

Well, I can give you pretty good insight on this desiscion.

I had this same question a little over 2 years ago.
But, I had the big zoom wants and it overpowered my judgement.

Each are great lenses. As long as I have enough light, the 100-400IS is awesome. But it is not the lens for low lit subjects.

In reality I needed the 70-200 F2.8. It ould have served me better.

Now, with my D60, I don't hate the 100-400. Believe me, the 640mm you get with it and the D60 is great.

So the choice should be in what you shoot a lot of.

At 70mm (112) - 200mm (320) at f2.8 is a damn nice choice to round out your needs. But if all you shoot is wildlife in good light, then get the 100-400IS f4.5-5.6.

If I had to do it all over again, I would get the 70-200 IS first and then want the 100-400 later for the even greater focal range.

My $0.02 worth...

[Greg M]

The only way to truely answer your question is for you to tell us what you normally shoot.

If you use, or want to use, apertures larger then 5.6 then the 70-200L IS is the one that you want. Otherwise, you'll love the 100-400L IS.

I have both. I use the 70-200L IS more for two main reasons. I don't care for the push/pull of the 100-400L IS and I shoot more low light now. I would recommend either lens. It just depends on how you want to use it.

[Hawkeye12]

i agrre.......it depends on what you are shooting. i have the 100-400 and only use it for tripod work.
it's a great lens, but i think the 70-200 has produces a slightly better image.

[Todd]

Greetings All,
I guess I'm the odd man out here since I feel the 70-200 is a last resort lens for me due to quality of the shots I get. Most of the time I have the 100-400 on simply because it gives me the best quality shots; at any focal length it is by far the sharpest lens I've got. Even though you may have to work harder to get around its limitations and apply a little more creativity for me it is worth those efforts. If need be I'll switch back to the versitile 28-70 and If I still can't get there, then the 70-200 goes on. It could very well be that my 70-200 is a lemon and that my 100-400 is an anomily of quality!

Todd Asher
www.motorsport-photo.com
todd@motorsport-photo.com

[traveler]

Easy, the 70-200 2.8L IS. It's their sharpest zoom in the line, and extraordinarily versatile. If you slap a 1.4xII teleconverter on it you'll find it does it's job without any loss of sharpness. Above 300mm you'll want that 100-400L though. Together they cover an awesome amount of real estate. It's a win win situation to be sure. They are both essentials in the bag AFAIAC. Enjoy.........

[rebenstein]

Just got my 70-200 IS today and, it's incredible!

[Rayz]

What I'd really like to know, is the 70-200 F2.8 at the long end with 2x extender equal in quality to the 100-400 at the long end? Tell me! tell me! tell me!

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Rayz wrote:
What I'd really like to know, is the 70-200 F2.8 at the long end with 2x extender equal in quality to the 100-400 at the long end? Tell me! tell me! tell me!

Ray,

This might help http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/400v400.shtml

Regards,

[50/1.4]

Roger - Thanks for th reference. Interesting test, but an invalid one to compare both lenses since he didn't use the IS capability on the tripod that the 70-200 has. He didn't level the playing field, he tilted it by not using one of the lenses to its fullest capabilities. Too bad we still don't know which is better.

[kd6lor]

50/1.4 wrote:
Roger - Thanks for th reference. Interesting test, but an invalid one to compare both lenses since he didn't use the IS capability on the tripod that the 70-200 has. He didn't level the playing field, he tilted it by not using one of the lenses to its fullest capabilities. Too bad we still don't know which is better.
I think that you are wrong in trying to decide which is "better." Better for who? What needs? Better for you might be worse for me. I think the test was valid given the parameters. The test is not the final word, there never will be a final word that is true for all. For me, the final word was the 70-200IS with the 2X since I seldom go over 200mm, and when I do, the 2X isn't bad, it just isn't quite as good as the 100-400 is at 400. That what works for ME.

Paul


http://www.melor.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=422&exhibition=6

Check out a picture of my buddy shot with the 2X and 70-200 IS. Would this have been better if I had a 100-400? Possibly. Could you tell the difference on the web? No. At 4*6? No. Larger? Probably not unless I had side by side shots for a comparison.

[50/1.4]

His methodology was flawed since he did not measure the relative capabilities of the IS systems. Canon claims that the one on the 70-200/2.8IS will allow handholding at 3 stops slower speed. The test did not even address the veracity of this claim, certainly an important one with an IS lens. He did not compare the lenses handheld. He did not use the IS on the tripod with the 70-200 IS. His conclusion might be true, his methodolgy is definitely flawed. It hardly matters how one defines better, since this was an incomplete comparison. I'd say being able to have less movement blur at the same speed as another lens IS (ha!) "better" and could overcome a difference in sharpness between 2 lenses. What he really did was to test the glass under 1 certain condition, he certainly did not test the lenses comparatively.

[dbarthel]

All Michael was trying to compare is the 70-200 with the 2x vs the 100-400 with no converter at 400mm focal length. His results are conclusive: the 100-400 at 400 is sharper than the 70-200 + 2x. The test was not a feature by feature shootout of the two lenses, just trying to answer the 2x converter question.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

50/1.4 wrote:
His methodology was flawed since he did not measure the relative capabilities of the IS systems. Canon claims that the one on the 70-200/2.8IS will allow handholding at 3 stops slower speed. The test did not even address the veracity of this claim, certainly an important one with an IS lens. He did not compare the lenses handheld. He did not use the IS on the tripod with the 70-200 IS. His conclusion might be true, his methodolgy is definitely flawed. It hardly matters how one defines better, since this was an incomplete comparison. I'd say being able to have less movement blur at the same speed as another lens IS (ha!) "better" and could overcome a difference in sharpness between 2 lenses. What he really did was to test the glass under 1 certain condition, he certainly did not test the lenses comparatively.

True, the test did not address all the issues you raise; that doesn't make it flawed, merely limited. The comparison shows that the 100-400 will give sharper pictures than the 70-200+2x on a tripod. OK you could handhold the 70-200 combo 1 stop slower than the 100-400, and may be the IS on the 70-200 would help, if the wind was making the tripod shake. But in neither case will the shorter lens produce a better image than it would on a tripod as Michael Reichmann tested. If maximum image quality at 400mm is what you want, the test proves the single lens does better than the combo. If you need maximum flexibility of aperture/speed, then the superior IS of the 70-200 should help.

Regards,

[50/1.4]

It will prove it when he turns the IS on for the 70-200, until then he does not prove it. Think of it this way, would you expect the 70-200 + 2X to do better with IS on? Okay, how much better? See what I mean, we don't know. His conclusion may be true, but it is not proven. Dbarthel: You are restating what he said. Look at the part after he says "Here's what the test is all about:" As Roger stated, his test was incomplete. As if he was comparing 2 cars where one has a 6 speed transmission and the other a 5 speed, but he's not going to use the 6th gear in the one car in the comparison. Capice? Even if the 100-400 gives better results @ 400mm (and I suspect it does) we really don't know nor do we have an idea of the true difference between the 2. And it still has NO validity for handheld photography since the IS systems were not compared.

[P.C. Plod]

You still seem to be missing the point! The test was only designed to check out the effect of the converter and not the effectiveness of the IS systems in each lens. Therefore the test achieved it's objective.

[50/1.4]

He did not state what you said at all. Maybe it was what he intended, it is just not stated. Re-read it, there is nothing there that excludes the testing of the IS systems. There is a remarkable incuriousity and incompleteness in this testing. A better test if the TC was the sole concern and the IS is irrelevant would be to use the non-IS 70-200/2.8 which may have better optics according to some. We really have no idea how the lenses do handheld, which is how most shooting is done, even with these types of lenses. Now isn't that the question most people would really want the answer to? Anyway the horse seems to have expired.

[titus]

I don't understand the arguments:

. Yes, at 400mm, the 100-400 is a better lens.

but

. from 70 to 100mm, the 70-200 is a better lens (100-400 can't do it)
. from 100 to 200mm, the 70-200 is a better lens, seems everyone agrees with it
. Don't know, from 200 to 280mm ... with a 1.4x, some say the 70-200 still beats the 100-400
. from 280 to 399mm, don't know, but expect that the 100-400 would yield better result than the 70-200 w/ 2x extender.

Conclusions:
. if most of your shots are from 70 to 280 mm, you'd be better off with a 70-200 with a 1.4 extender
. If most of your shots are in the 280 to 400mm range, go for the 100-400

In my case, most of my shots were in the 100 to 180mm range, I went for a 70-200 IS. For the rare occasion where I would need close to 400mm shots, I have two options:
. Crop the image (post-processing). The D60 has enoug pixels to do that and still get good quality images (depends on size of prints)
. Or accept lower sharpness with the 2x extender

Good luck

Titus