To IS or not to IS (a canon 70/200 4L thread)

[Hans_Andersson]

I recently bought a tamron 70/200 2.8 wich is supersharp but the AF has some issues with being slow and inaccurate wich leaves alot to be desired for rc and motocross.

So my plan now is to exchange it to a canon 70/200 4L but i have some questions.

Since the tamron and most of my other lenses have 3.5 or less (2.8 is popular with me) i wonder what you guys think about the canon being only 4. Will this be a problem? How is the bokeh on this one?
And since it is "only" 4L im guessing that the model with IS is the one to go with, but the price is really high for me.

Anyone here own anyone of the canons? or maybe have tried both?

And yes i have tried to search but im an idiot with bad engrish so any kind of help would be nice.

[glypo]

I have and shot with a Canon 70-200mm f/4.0 L series without IS and it is spot on.

For action photos and the like you don't really need IS, especially only at 200mm. If you were talking about the 100-400mm f/4.0-5.6 L then the IS there is great. At 400mm you can shoot at 1/200s handheld and still get sharp photos - so IS helps there. But not needed for 200mm in my opinion.

By the way Canon do a 70-200mm f/2.8 L without IS for about £900. But I assume if the f/4.0 L IS is out of budget at £750... the f/2.8 will be well out of budget.

I have tried both the f/4.0 and f/2.8 70-200mm L lenses, but not a f/4.0 IS. I can honestly say the f/4.0 in my opinion is better (much lighter weight) for action photos as you don't need anything below f/4.0 (depth of view becomes too shallow and on a sunny day with f/4.0 you can get over 1/6400 so speed certainly not an issue either).

Obviously for portraits and what not people will find the f/2.8 of more value, but even so.... worth the money, not really. As for the IS as you asked, as I said with the f/4.0 you can get some mad quick shutter speeds anyway so IS becomes much less relevant.

[craigosh]

I Use the IS on my 24-105mm quite a bit, its quite useful for cheating an extra stop out of the shutter speed when i'm working indoors. Not much use on a bright sunny day, as mentioned, but if the clouds roll in it can help keep things still.

Have you looked at the sigma 70-200? that gets good reviews and has an AF motor similar to Canons HSM, so that would probably sort your AF problems.

The other approach would simply be to learn to pre-focus well. Regardless of whether I'm using my USM lenses or not, if i'm shooting action I usually manual and pre-focus.

[glypo]

Yeah, very good point.

Hans I notice you use a 400D. I can't remember exactly how the focusing works there. but I'm sure it's similar to my 40D.

Of course, you can pre-focus using AF, say on the apex of a corner and keep the shutter release button pressed halfway which works well. But as Craig said you can manually focus. What I like to do here is switch the lens to MF obviously. But if you press the shutter button half way (like you to to AF) the AF points will beep when they come in focus. This makes it dead easy to manaul focus, and unlike AF your focus point is not lost once you take your finger off the shutter button.

Really helps speed things up when using a slower lens.

[craigosh]

Have you looked at used lenses Hans?

I've just come across a place here in the uk with a 70-200mm f2.8 non IS and an f4 IS for pretty much the same price. In fact the f2.8 lens is the cheaper of the two.

Always worth considering Used kit, can get some good deals.

[sim]

Originally Posted by glypo

What I like to do here is switch the lens to MF obviously. But if you press the shutter button half way (like you to to AF) the AF points will beep when they come in focus. This makes it dead easy to manaul focus, and unlike AF your focus point is not lost once you take your finger off the shutter button.

Sweet! Thanks for the tip. Glad I poked my nose in here.

[jimmy]

I never use the IS (called VR on mine, but same thing) - I used to just because it was there. For really (really) low shutter speed panning shots it worked a little but tbh you can get the same stabilization by using a smoother arc when panning.
For anything moving that you're not trying to get a special (slow pan) effect with, then IS really isn't worth spending extra on.

Generally with my 70-200 F2.8 I will shoot from F4 to around F11 outdoors - I find F2.8 depth of field to be just too small for most things.