for the photographers

[focalintent]

Would you rather have:

• a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens
  
• an 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens
  

The f/2.8 allows for much lower light/faster shooting. The 80-400mm gives you that much more reach. (Assume that, optically, the lenses perform roughly equivalently, e.g. roughly same levels of vignetting, distortion, softness at certain ends/apertures, etc...)

(Why isn't this a poll? Not only do i want to know which folks would prefer, i want to know the whys : )

Comments

[sol3.livejournal.com]

*nod* - i'm leaning a bit towards #2 - but damn have i developed a f/2.8 bias. Not having a good zoom to shoot surfers this week is what's putting me in the market for a new zoom. (The 5d shows flaws in the 75-300mm USM III like no tomorrow ) :

BTW - the Tokina 28-70mm f/2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro II lens is -nice-. It's fairly close to the canon 28-70mm f/2.8L that i rented a few weeks ago - but you can get it off of ebay for under $200. It's a bit slower to focus than the L lens (but also $800-1000 less) but seems to be fairly close in image quality. (While the L lens is, I will grant better - the tokina blows my 28-105mm USM II lens out of the water, quality wise)