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Telephoto lens

John Mc

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I'm thinking of getting a Telephoto for a variety of thing's.
Portrait's,reportage,landscape and wildlife.
I've been looking at Canons 70-200/2.8 Is and their 100-400/4.5-5.6 Is.
Theres a Difference of around £500,But im considering buying a Canon 2X Extender,if i was to buy the 70-200mm.The only reason for this is because i've recently gotten into wildlife and shooting Birds and i dont think the 70-200 would have enough distance.

Does anybody have any opinions on which they would go for based on experience and use?
I have a Canon 500D(Xti) Which i am aware would have a Cropped factor on the lenses. But im Going to be purchasing a 5D2 around October.(Want a Full Frame camera for portraits and landscapes)
 
I can't speak to the specifics of the Canon lenses, but I would suggest that the 70-200 with a TC is a much more versatile combination than the a 100-400 4.5/5.6. My 70-200 (Nikon) is my 'Go-to' lens and coupled with a 1.7TC I'm very happy with the results. This allows you a fast, shorter tele lens, which is great for portrait work on FF bodies, as well as weddings, and some nature work when the subjects are closer.
 
i am not a canon shooter, but from personal experience, the 70-200 2.8 range is great, and i love the consistently wide aperture!

Regards,
Jake
 
Just remember if you get the 2x extender that you lose 2-stops of light.

Wildlife i'd probably go with the 100-400mm. i have a 70-200 f/4L and love it but sometimes would like a little more reach so a 1.4x extender seems to be the way to go as then it's an f/8 which is still manageable for most of my shooting conditions.
 
Recently went through the same situation. I was not happy with the 70-200 F2.8 IS mkI and 1.4 tc. I rented the 100-400 and was a great lens but I really HATE the large amount of dust it produced inside the camera. But that might have been because it was a rental. At 400 f/5.6 it was a sharp lens actually a lot sharper than I had expected. I choose the 300 F4IS due to it was faster than the 100-400 and it also works very well with macro. I also rented a canon 1.4 tc mkI and was very happy with the pictures. I lost the versatility but I believe I made up for it in sharpness and macro ability. The 70-200 is way to short for birding unless you are in a bird exhibit. The 300 f4 is also still short but with a crop body and 1.4 tc it works very well. The only other options are the 400 f5.6 (with no IS) or the 500/600mm lens. Hope this helps.
 
If you want to use a 70-200mm with a 2*TC the only one that will do it well is the 70-200mm f2.8 IS L M2. This lens and TC combo gets image quality equal to the 100-400mm L lens.
The only downside is AF speed is slower, though the new M3 teleconverters are said to have some bonuses in AF speed over the M2.

I used the M1 70-200mm f2.8 IS L and I've now upgraded to the M2 and I'll say that the image quality when using the 2TC is very noticable and worth the extra costs.
 
The M3 extenders extra AF capabilities only work on the newer batch of lenses. And for $500 I don't think you are going to see enough imrpovement over the MArk II on a mark I 70-200. ( the 70-200 MKii ) I have a 70-200 f/2.8 IS Mark I and it is my favorite lens. I also have used it with my Kenko 1.4 pro300 with good results and recently sold my Bigma 50-500mm and bought a Canon 2X mark II because using a sigma 2x on the 70-200 2.8 was giving me better results than the bigma although just a slight loss of distance ( the Bigma isn really only high 400mm not actually 500 )

The 70-200 I think is much better than the 100-400. The 100-400 has push/pull zoom and even if you are forced to shoot at 5.6 using the extender, thats still pretty decent for 400mm shooting outdoors.
 
The M3 advantages are not specifially limited to the M2 telephoto lenses - instead canon uses words like "optimal" "best" etc.... This means that the improvements are shown bast on those lenses, but does not exclude them from affecting other lenses as well. I suspect this is both a design factor and a marketing factor (marketing wanting to encouage people to upgrade both lens and TC and not just one).

As for image quality the M1 to M2 difference is very noticable - with the 70-200mm range is from good to excellent; the M1 is still a good performing lens between 70-200mm and remains a pro option still. The M2 is all round better; whilst with the 2*TC I'd say its from boarderline usable to very usable.

Eg:
70-200mm f2.8 IS L original:
little birds photos test - a set on Flickr

70-200mm f2.8 IS L M2:
70-200mm f2.8 IS L M2 test - a set on Flickr
Minsmere - a set on Flickr

There are 100% crops in those sets and all shots taken on a 400D camera body
 
It's a Daft question,cause the Answers probably going to be do it,but i should probably hire them out before i buy,im thinking the 70-200mm mk2 and Tc is what i'll go for as i mostly shoot Portraits and Landscapes. Wildlife is More a hobby for me,i like the quietness. I suppose what im really asking,is what would be the better stop gap till i buy a 5/600mm
 
Before I chose the 70-200mm M2 and had the M1 I asked around people who used the 300mm f2.8 - 400mm f2.8 - 500mm f4 etc... type lenses. Most of the users didn't have or keep 300mm f4 or 400mm f5.6 type lenses; however most had a 70-200mm and quite a few were also using a 100-400mm lens as a lighter, smaller option (since they didn't always want the super heavy and large lenses for every shooting event).

Thus I was aiming for the 100-400mm or one of the sigma 500mm zooms - when the 70-200mm M2 came out it seemed the best option to have a great 70-200mm which would also work well as a 140-400mm range lens whilst I save for the longer and far more expensive telephoto primes
 
I quiet fancy a Telephoto prime lens, but i know its a big investment,im not sure what i'll have though. so aslong as i get something that does me till then,i'll be happy,the Sigma 150-500 seem's interesting,but ive read a few bad reviews about it.so im abit sceptical about it.but who know's. i'm going to rent the 70-200 mk2 at the end of the month from Lensforhire.co.uk, just for a weekend and hire the 100-400 a month or two afterwards. :)
 
I dont argue that the 70-200 Mark II is better, I just meant that using a 70-200 Mark I and spending $500 on the Mark II extender when you could get a used Mark II for around $150-200 wouldn't really be worth it to me, given that you can't even take FULL advantage of what you are shelling out $500 on. To each his own though.
 
I dont argue that the 70-200 Mark II is better, I just meant that using a 70-200 Mark I and spending $500 on the Mark II extender when you could get a used Mark II for around $150-200 wouldn't really be worth it to me, given that you can't even take FULL advantage of what you are shelling out $500 on. To each his own though.


Im Confused why i wont take full advantage of it? :S am i missing something? i understand that i will lose out on 2 stop's. The 70-200/2.8 ISmk2 would only be coupled with the Extender on weekend's,so i would get full use of the lens. Im confused now :confused:
 
I mean with the 70-200 MARK I coupled with the MARK III extender. The Mark III extender has a processor in it to assist with AF and other functions supposedly making it focus better and sharper( BUT I read that only works when paired with one of the new lenses ( IE. the 70-200 Mark II ). Sure you still get some extra coatings and all of that, but thats steep for an extender if you intended to hook it to a Mark I 70-200 and not a Mark II. But you can find some used Mark II extenders now because many people are upgrading lenses and extenders. So to me ( given that I have a 70-200 Mark I ) this was more fiscally responsible to me than dumping $500 on the new fancy Mark III. Sorry for the confusion.
 

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