Excited my first L

[Scuba]

IS never puts a lens on par with a faster aperture in terms of "speed." You can't stop motion with IS, even though you may be able to shoot hand-held at lower shutter speed of a non-moving subject.

Yeah no kidding. "Speed" I am referring to is shutter speed in low light. A "faster" lens can shoot better in low light which is what I am referring to. I didn't say anything about motion. True at the other end of the spectrum trying to boost shutter speed to stop action you are right a 2.8 better then f/4 but the speed of a lens is not often referred to anything other then low light conditions. Also IS is not necessary for higher shutter speed situations as it is for lower shutters. Honestly, I don't understand the point of that comment.

 

[TheBiles]

IS never puts a lens on par with a faster aperture in terms of "speed." You can't stop motion with IS, even though you may be able to shoot hand-held at lower shutter speed of a non-moving subject.

Yeah no kidding. "Speed" I am referring to is shutter speed in low light. A "faster" lens can shoot better in low light which is what I am referring to. I didn't say anything about motion. True at the other end of the spectrum trying to boost shutter speed to stop action you are right a 2.8 better then f/4 but the speed of a lens is not often referred to anything other then low light conditions. Also IS is not necessary for higher shutter speed situations as it is for lower shutters. Honestly, I don't understand the point of that comment.

Because your comment made it seem that an f/4 lens with IS was better than or equal to an f/2.8 in low light conditions, when that is only true for non-moving subjects. I was clarifying that in case it was misunderstood.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Buckster]

Congrats on your purchase! I'm also debating what lens will be my first L. I'm thinking of 70-200 f/4 or 135L. I would also love ultrawide coverage, but that 's not a must for me at this moment.

From the feedback I got the 70-200 f/4 IS has much better optics and a 2+ stop Stabilization which makes it on par with the 2.8 non is in terms of speed and weighs less. Just sharing what I learned. Haven't played with the 135 yet but I have read it is great. Really depends on the use there. Kids I would say a zoom adults a prime for portraits. Also depends on your other gear.

IS never puts a lens on par with a faster aperture in terms of "speed." You can't stop motion with IS, even though you may be able to shoot hand-held at lower shutter speed of a non-moving subject.

But who would ever do that? Oh, that's right... portrait shooters, wildlife shooters, landscape shooters, umm... just about everyone at some time or another will want to do that, actually. Not that it's important or anything.

And while you can't stop motion with IS, the extra stop or two that faster glass gives you can be compensated for with a stop or two of ISO on today's cameras without image degradation, if you don't have that faster glass, that is. Same in darker situations, which always comes up in these discussions about why you MUST have fast glass - dark churches, little league games at night in the dark, etc., where no flash is allowed or is practical.

So, what you really get with that faster glass, for the most part, is greater DOF and separation, until you stop it down 2 or three stops to get to the lens' sweet spot on sharpness, which puts you right back to shooting at f/(not the faster glass lens' aperture)...

But of course, there's still internet bragging rights to think about, so, yeah...

 

[sovietdoc]

I had a t1i before which was terrible at anything over 800 ISo, so I couldn't really raise that up, and my zoom lens was f/4-f/5.6

With 5d3 that can get decent results at 12800 ISO, I could have used my f/4 lens just fine indoors. With modern DSLR's I only see a point of f2.8, 2.0, 1.8, 1.4 and 1.2 glass for portraits. And if you don't need much of that DoF blur in what you're shooting, you can easily shoot with 70-200 f/4 indoors and just compensate for a loss of a f-stop by upping the ISO.

Knowing this, the only reason I decided to get 70-200 II over 70-200 f/4 was IQ and CA control.

 

[belial]

I had a t1i before which was terrible at anything over 800 ISo, so I couldn't really raise that up, and my zoom lens was f/4-f/5.6

With 5d3 that can get decent results at 12800 ISO, I could have used my f/4 lens just fine indoors. With modern DSLR's I only see a point of f2.8, 2.0, 1.8, 1.4 and 1.2 glass for portraits. And if you don't need much of that DoF blur in what you're shooting, you can easily shoot with 70-200 f/4 indoors and just compensate for a loss of a f-stop by upping the ISO.

Knowing this, the only reason I decided to get 70-200 II over 70-200 f/4 was IQ and CA control.

Really? Because I get good ISO performance easily up to 1600 on the t1i by just exposing to the right. Then again a tiny bit of noise never bugged me anyways

 

[TheBiles]

From the feedback I got the 70-200 f/4 IS has much better optics and a 2+ stop Stabilization which makes it on par with the 2.8 non is in terms of speed and weighs less. Just sharing what I learned. Haven't played with the 135 yet but I have read it is great. Really depends on the use there. Kids I would say a zoom adults a prime for portraits. Also depends on your other gear.

IS never puts a lens on par with a faster aperture in terms of "speed." You can't stop motion with IS, even though you may be able to shoot hand-held at lower shutter speed of a non-moving subject.

But who would ever do that? Oh, that's right... portrait shooters, wildlife shooters, landscape shooters, umm... just about everyone at some time or another will want to do that, actually. Not that it's important or anything.

And while you can't stop motion with IS, the extra stop or two that faster glass gives you can be compensated for with a stop or two of ISO on today's cameras without image degradation, if you don't have that faster glass, that is. Same in darker situations, which always comes up in these discussions about why you MUST have fast glass - dark churches, little league games at night in the dark, etc., where no flash is allowed or is practical.

So, what you really get with that faster glass, for the most part, is greater DOF and separation, until you stop it down 2 or three stops to get to the lens' sweet spot on sharpness, which puts you right back to shooting at f/(not the faster glass lens' aperture)...

But of course, there's still internet bragging rights to think about, so, yeah...

Who shoots portraits in light that would require you to need IS on a lens shorter than 200mm? Candid portraits, maybe? Seems like those would definitely need some fast glass to stop the motion.

Wildlife? What wildlife is going to let you get close enough with a lens under 200mm and NOT be moving? Dead wildlife?

Landscapes would be useful if not on a tripod since you're already shooting stopped down most likely.

There are very few situations when you aren't going to need to stop at least a little motion, especially if you are shooting people. While you can always just "turn up the ISO," there are situations where you are already at the top of your usable range, which is usually around 1600-3200 on crop bodies, and even then the results are less than pleasing. The whole point of my comment was to clarify the fact that IS does not simply make a slow lens "equal" to a faster one, which is a concept that can confuse people.

 

[fokker]

Mixing natural light and strobed light you often need quite low shutter speeds, hence IS is useful. And in many other situations obviously.

 

[Buckster]

Who shoots portraits in light that would require you to need IS on a lens shorter than 200mm? Candid portraits, maybe? Seems like those would definitely need some fast glass to stop the motion.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of seniors, engagements, and so forth, where there's a lot of handheld work.

Wildlife? What wildlife is going to let you get close enough with a lens under 200mm and NOT be moving? Dead wildlife?

Zoos, birds on limbs, elk, deer and other large mammals that tend to stand there and look at you before mosy-ing on or bolting off, etc.

Landscapes would be useful if not on a tripod since you're already shooting stopped down most likely.

Yeah, all these situations are predicated on the idea that it's useful for shooting handheld, otherwise there's no need for IS at all.

There are very few situations when you aren't going to need to stop at least a little motion, especially if you are shooting people.

Depends on what you normally shoot.

While you can always just "turn up the ISO," there are situations where you are already at the top of your usable range, which is usually around 1600-3200 on crop bodies, and even then the results are less than pleasing.

Does that happen to you very often? I ask because it rarely ever happens to me, but we probably have two very different shooting agendas. Maybe you could post a few examples, with the EXIF still attached, of course, to show the importance of this ability.

The whole point of my comment was to clarify the fact that IS does not simply make a slow lens "equal" to a faster one, which is a concept that can confuse people.

Understood. The whole point of mine was that for *most* everyday shooters, very expensive "fast" glass is overkill for *most* of the shots they want to get.

There are some general internet memes in photo forums that I don't necessarily agree with. One is that kit lenses are crap. Another is that you MUST have the very BEST and fastest lenses available that cost thousands of dollars each, in order to deal with every possible situation out there.

From my POV, there are photographers who really do encounter those particular circumstances on a regular basis because of their particular shooting agenda or required work, and they should get the gear to deal with it, if they can afford it. But not everybody needs it, and yet every time some new shooter pops up and asks what lens they should get to take snapshots of their kids, somebody jumps up and suggests top of the line fast glass, which just makes no sense to me.

YMMV

 

[Scuba]

Well this has gotten interesting....

I think clearly it depends on what type of work the photographer is doing on which lens is better for them. I think we all know the f/2.8 IS is the faster glass however it comes at a cost, financially and weight/size. When neither weight nor money is an issue the 2.8 IS is the clear choice, but how often is that really the case? My point previously and apparently a few others is that the f/4 glass may have a few disadvantages but it also has its own advantages such as less weight and smaller size and much lower cost. My more specific point related to the f2.8 non-IS and the f/4 IS version, simply stating the IS on the f/4 gave a similar speed (hand held ability) in low light while having similar optical quality, lower cost, lower weight and size. Buckster nailed it when he said "for *most* everyday shooters, very expensive "fast" glass is overkill for *most* of the shots they want to get." I think this is even more true now with the ISO's new cameras have. On a 5D mkIII images at 25k ISO have little noise and are prefectly acceptable so that 1 stop of speed lost on the glass can easily be made up for.

 

[AndySplash]

The "problem" with L glass is... once you have one, you HAVE to have another... and another... and well, there goes the bank account. :razz:

Ain't that the truth!