More sharpness in the lens, what to do (from these lenses)

Hi,

At the moment I use a 75-300mm f/4-5.6 Canon III lens.
The cheapest I believe.

I'm looking at a replacement and thinking about the following two contenders.

Tokina AT-X 840 AF II 80-400 F4.5-5.6
Tokina AT-X 340 AF II 100-300 F4

I use ALOT of zoom, and with the 300 I'm more than once running out of range so the 400 is appealing (and it's a bit cheaper).

The 100-300 has a lower F number however I don't feel like I miss a lot of light at this time with the Canon.

Does anyone know these two lensen.
Most important is more sharpness in the shots, bonus would be the 400mm and thel lower price.

The Canon was € 289,00 the Tokina 840 € 925,00 and the 340 € 1465,00.

Greetings,
Frank

I hate to spoil the party but....
You should really be looking at better lenses to go with your 10D. I keep repeating this to lots of people - buy the best you can afford and limit the range you buy at first to do it.
The better the lenses you put on a digital body the better, by orders of magnitude, will be the results you get.
The best really means Canon - sorry to those folks who swear by third party makers. Canon have not collaborated with any third party lens maker regarding the electronic interface with their bodies. This means that every third party lens which fits a Canon EF does so through reverse engineering of the electronics. And people wonder why third party lenses aren't always a perfect match?
Also you should think about a prime telephoto if you want longer than say 200mm because long telephoto zooms are more of a compromise than you would believe.

Aim to buy a 70-200/4L and a 300/4L - buy one at once and save for the other, buy secondhand. But buy Canon.
(No I don't work for Canon! - I would be saying the same thing to a Nikon owner....buy Nikon lenses for it.).

You are absolutly right but some people can't pay for the canon lenses like myself .

I found the Sigma AF 135-400 APO Asph on www.photozone.de this one is tested a 3.21 while the Canon LIS is tested a 4.48.

I'm no professional so I think that I have to start slow.
The standard Canon EF 75-300 I use now is adequate but in no way enough to keep me entertainent for the next year.

Greetings,
Frank

J.A.F. Doorhof wrote:
You are absolutly right but some people can't pay for the canon lenses like myself .

I found the Sigma AF 135-400 APO Asph on www.photozone.de this one is tested a 3.21 while the Canon LIS is tested a 4.48.

I'm no professional so I think that I have to start slow.
The standard Canon EF 75-300 I use now is adequate but in no way enough to keep me entertainent for the next year.

Greetings,
Frank

Do not depend on Photozone too much. It is still a popularity contest with most people rating their lens against their own subjective standards rather than against a common and known standard. I made entries for my own equipment there to look at the questions, and they expect those who respond to know what "professional" standards are. The only control is that the answers are reasonably internally consistent and not too far outside the bounds of what other people say. These limits only serve to reinforce the biases rather than to correct them.

The Sigma 135-400 APO earned a 2.6 on Photodo, which is based on objective testing of MTF curves. Your 75-300 did better at 3.1, and that lens has weaknesses as you know. The Canon 70-200/4L that Paul mentioned was rated 4.1 by comparison. The 70-200/4L is not nearly as expensive as the faster L lenses, being only about $600. If you need a longer lens, get the 1.4 teleconverter to go with it.

You are right to start slow. But starting slow means sticking with quality and expanding your telephoto range slowly, rather than buying several cheap lenses that eventually you'll want to throw away. Getting the 70-200/4L, which is only a little more expensive than the Sigma you mentioned, is starting slow.

Starting fast would be getting the 70-200/2.8L IS plus the 100-400L IS.

Take small steps, but take them in the right direction.

Rick "who himself traded the 75-300 for the 70-200/4L" Denney

Canon EF 100-300/5.6 L
How about that one ?
It's on sale for € 495,00.

Greetings,
Frank

Given your price range, I personally would hang on to what you have for now. Get a 50/1.8 for closer pictures, but for telephoto save up your money. The next upgrade should be 70-200/4 anything less (except you will get an slight improvement from the 75-300 IS version) is pretty much a waste of money for what you want.

Better yet be even more patiencent and get the 70-200/2.8L IS or 100-400L IS as your next lens. it will be worth it.

Below $300 US the only lens I would recommend is a prime.

Just my opinion

Hi,

So not take the 100-300L lens ?

Maybe I'm better of saving a while.

Greetings,
Frank

The 100-400 L IS is a fine canon zoom, it is worth saving that bit longer to get a damn good lens (with a bit of extra reach at 400mm)!

RichardtheSane wrote:
The 100-400 L IS is a fine canon zoom, it is worth saving that bit longer to get a damn good lens (with a bit of extra reach at 400mm)!

Aggred. I have the 100-400L with IS. Execllent lens. Of course can't compare it to the Prime 400 or 800

At 400MM

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Can't really say that these examples are promoting that lens!

Hummm,

That lens retails here for € 1995,00 on the cheapest adress, that's not saving a bit longer that's like 4x the ammount I have to pay for the 100-300L.

I will think about it, maybe on the used market.
But for the time being I'm not so happy with the sharpness of the stock 75-300II.

Difficult.

Greetings,
Frank

Frank,

If i'm right, you're from the Netherlands (like me). One thing you can think of is getting the lens from overseas. I'm definitly thinking of doing that myself.

The 100-400L can be bought for $1300. At the current rate that would be 1160 eur. Even if they open the package at customs you still stay under the 1500 eur.

I'm 95% sure my next lens will be imported from the US.

Rob

Hi Folks,

what amuses me in such a discussion is the fact that people are spending 1500 $ for a DSLR Body and than can´t aford good glas.

This is the same than spending 1500 $ for a Strereo AMP and then having only 400 $ for the speakers.

It makes no sense. The weakest part in the chain limits the quality of your pictures!

kind reagards

Dieter

Well Dieter, some of us are more fortunate than others. Nothing to be funny about. You might as well say that we buy cameras that will feed a whole family for a year somewhere else in the world.

Dieter,

We didn't pay $1500 for the camera. We paid 2000 eur ($2250) for it here in the Netherlands. So we have $750 less to spend on a nice lens that costs twice as much here as it does in the US...

And if it was only up to me, i'd spent all my salary on nice electronic gadgets. But my family has a saying in it too..