Gear Review: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS
February 20, 2008
For those of you who don’t care a lick about the technical side of photography, go ahead and click somewhere else. Here is my shallow (as opposed to “In-Depth”) review of the newest piece of equipment in my bag.
The Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM (fancy terminology that really means nothing more than “This lens will mount on any EOS camera, has a focal range of 70mm to 200mm, has a constant f/2.8 aperture, is part of Canon’s “L” or “Luxury” line, and comes with the Ultrasonic Motor and built-in Image Stabilization features.” You can see why we abbreviate!) is an amazing piece of engineering.
One of the “Rules of Thumb” for photography, to ensure a sharp image is the “1/Focal Length Rule.” This basically means you want a shutter speed that is faster than 1 divided by the focal length. This is intended to stop the blur that can come in from human movement (the blood pumping though your veins, breathing, the effects of holding a long, heavy lens, etc.). So, for a 50mm lens, you wouldn’t want to shoot slower than 1/50th of a second. For a 200mm lens, you would typically want shutter speeds faster than 1/200th of a second to ensure the image was sharp. This rule of thumb become particularly important with longer focal lengths, because the length of the lens can exacerbate even the smallest of movements.
And this is where the amazing “Image Stabilization” or IS kicks in. The photo above is a 100% crop of this photo, which is of my coffee grinder in my kitchen. Following the rule of thumb, anything less than 1/200th of a second should have resulted in a blurry image. However, with the IS feature switched on, I was able to take this shot in pretty low light, at 1/25th of a second. That’s big. That’s huge! Being able to hand hold at much, much slower speeds and get shots this sharp…wow.
Later on I’ll post a more in-depth review of this lens (as per my New Years’ “Goals”), but for now, just know I am SOLD on the IS technology. Absolutely incredible!
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February 25th, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’m just getting into photography and have realized once I get out of grad school that I’d love to have a regular job in my field and to be a sports photographer on the side. I’ve been advised to save up my money and invest in this particular lens so I’m always interested in hearing others’ perspectives about it. I currently have a f/4-5.6 17-85mm IS USM and f/4-5.6 70-300mm IS USM and find them to be very nice lenses for my skill level (not even quite ‘amateur’) but know they would not be sufficient for good sports photography. I’m also curious to know what lens(es) you use as a general walk-around all-purpose lens until you need to switch out for a particular setting.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Adam,
Always glad to run into another UT fan!
Currently I am using the Canon 17-40 f/4 L as my “walkaround,” and sometimes my 50mm f/1.4. Before the 17-40 I used a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 which was an amazing little lens. The image quality was superb, and the constant 2.8 was very nice, but I needed the L build quality, and the focusing mechanism on the Tammy was a little noisy for me.
If money was no object, I would buy the new Canon EF-S 17-55 2.8 IS as a general purpose lens, especially since both of my cameras are cropped sensors. If I move up to a full-frame body, I’d take a long hard look at the 24-70 2.8 L, or the 24-105 f/4 L IS as a general walk-around lens.
And in terms of switching out, I usually carry two bodies, with my tele on one, and the wide angle on the other…