I am not receiving any mail for the past two-three days.
Grant Westerson
*
OK. Here's something.
I've been looking at getting a more travel friendly tele lens for digital use than the 100-400 and 70-200/2.8 IS I presently use.
The 100-400 was great for a trip to South Africa a couple of years ago, when it was all film and the EOS was my tele/macro camera. A wonderful combination for shooting from vehicles which you couldn't leave.
The 70-200 is great around here (Vancouver, Canada) when it gets dreary and rainy in the fall/winter, but it is even heavier than the 100-400 and gets to be a drag. So I got the 70-300 DO IS two weeks ago and have been trying it out, as well as comparing it with the other lenses, as well as the 28-135 IS. Btw, other lenses I use are the 28-75 Tamron, 100 macro USM, 50/1.4, 24/1.4, 16-35, 12-24 Sigma (now fixed) and 15/2.8.
The 70-300 is compact, better built than any non-L lens I've seen, heavier than it looks, stiffer zooming than I would like, and has an idiotically large hood that still doesn't keep it from having flare problems.
On the basic image quality issues, I've compared it to the 100-400 and the 70-200/2.8 IS plain and with 1.4x (first version). Overall, image quality seems fairly equal to the 100-400 where the focal lengths overlap, but somehow the quality seems uneven. Some images are definitely better than those of the 100-400, but some seems quite soft in comparison. f/stop doesn't seem to be the real determinant, as it is quite good even at f/5.6. f/8 is definitely better, but don't feel that smaller stops are absolutely necessary.l Similarly in comparison with the 70-200, the best images seem essentially equal to those of the 70-200, while others are definitely a lot poorer. On the up side, with a little Photoshop massaging (from RAW images from a D60) the DO images are the equal of the 70-200 images. Withe the older 1.4x Canon converter on the 70-200, it seems to consistently deliver poorer image quality than the 70-300 DO on its own.
Flare seems to be a lot bigger problem for the DO lens, probably because of the DO element. Things that are very bright (specular highlights and such) have significant halos, often green, around them. Not pretty.
On the whole the lens works, and does what it's supposed to. I got it at a very attractive price through my local dealer (about $1100US) and the quality I can achieve if I pay attention is significantly better than I can get with any other compact lens, so I'll keep it. It is, however, a lot different than most other lenses, so some adjustment is necessary. Make use of that IS, as it is very good but needs a second or two to get up to speed. At 480mm equivalent, you have to hold it very steady to get the best quality.
I'll try to post some meaningful image comarisons shortly.
-- * Henning J. Wulff /|\ Wulff Photography & Design /###\ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] |[ ]| http://www.archiphoto.com * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
