Some full file lens samples that you can download to evaluate.

Because I purchased a used Canon 100-400L to compare to my Sigma 80-400 DG OS, and the time had come to try to decide which one I will keep I started shooting some shots to compare them. While doing that I thought it might be handy to do the same with my other zooms and share the results with anyone thinking of buying any of them. I have added similar shots from each of them, plus some old shots they were used for to make sure they were good when first bought. Some of the samples are cropped, but all are full file as shot with no post processing, and are what I consider "real world" use shots, just what the lenses were bought for. Samples are from Sigma 50-500, 70-300 APO, 80-400 OS, Canon 24-105L, 70-300 DO IS, 70-200 F2.8 L IS, 100-400 L IS.
I have assembled an on line album that others can download from by selecting whatever images they want and then using the "actions" tab. The downloaded files should contain the full EXIF, and you are free to use them for personal use, but not any commercial use is allowed, which hopefully is a reasonable request. The album is at this address (takes you to an AOL site, no junk ad links to deal with)
http://****/2plr9g
Thanks, Larry

Wow what a great resource Larry! Many thanks for putting this together, a wonderful pixel peepers dream! I am considering the DO lens from canon (300mm zoom) and your images show it to be a nice lens!

Simon

This is very nice.

Im getting a lot of corrupt rar files.
Unexpected end of archive.
my guess is the aol site is closing the download before it finishes or the internal compressor isnt doing the job right.
Just DL'in one photo at a time works better.

I'm lost... I can't figure out how to download them one at a time... all I'm getting is a corrupt zip file no matter what I try to do. If you want, I can give you temporary FTP access to my server so you can upload the zip to it. Just PM me and I'll give you the info.

Try clicking on a single thumbnail, it should then have a green box around it, and a checkmark in the lower left corner. Then click on ACTIONS, then click on download to my computer. It is possible that AOL may need you to download a small download manager program (they used to do that) and it should download. I am trying one right now to make sure they do download (I have used the site for this when selling gear and it worked). I only have rural 32K max dial up so it takes about 50 minutes for me to upload or download one of these files. I'll post after I check to see that my attempt works.

It worked for me except that the progress bar wasn't showing the progress. I just waited until the screen said the download was successful and displayed the message "locate picture now" I downloaded one of the large images plus a crop, each separately, but the files match the originals that I uploaded.

I have spent some time trying to figure out the problem with downloading the files and it looks like you MUST download the AOL "You've Got Pictures" download tool. From what I can tell Firefox doesn't allow that, nor does Win 98 as it is no longer supported, but Win 2000 or ME and up seem OK, and in my case I am using Internet Explorer, so don't know if Netscape will also work correctly. If you download the manager and things work as they should a screen with 2 progress bars will appear to indicate a download is in progress, but for some reason they don't show the progress, but once downloaded the screen will change to one offering to open the file(s). I have used 3 different computers to get to this point, so if anyone else has good results with a different combination please post it.
If your attempt to download indicates you will be getting a zip file, it isn't working and the file that downloads won't open, and you will get a message that it is corrupt when you try. Thanks, Larry.