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

[sensesurfer.livejournal.com]

70-200 2.8 and then you can teleconvert that to a 140-400 5.6

[sol3.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, i think it's time to hit up the rental shops (wonder if i can rent a teleconverter as well, i'd imagine so).

Of course, the 70-200 f/2.8 is more expensive than most of the other lenses i'm flipping around between - and the teleconverter is going to be another $100-300 on top of that. (I'm thinking i'd want to pair up lens mfgr and teleconverter mfgr).

The other downside to a teleconverter is then i lose the 70-140mm range when i've got the teleconverter on - which is the advantage of an 80-400mm.

So many variables, so little time (part of why i'm brain dumping about all of this so out loud).

[sol3.livejournal.com]

BTW - see above about the tokina lens that i've got. Nice fast lens - seems to give me pretty good image quality too. I'm in boston for april - if you want to play around with it I can bring it to a silks night with me : )

(I didn't think i'd be happy with a 3rd party lens - but supposedly the higher end lenses from the 3rd parties (sigma, tokina, tamron) actually don't suck - and this lens was cheap enough to grab and play with and resell if i didn't like it - cost me what it would take to rent the equivalent L lens for 2 weeks : )

[sensesurfer.livejournal.com]

I think I am going to avoid the non-cannon lenses for the simple fact that the 28-105 that I paid $229 for in 1999 is worth $220 right now on ebay. Funny as I can buy it new for about $229 now. My only concern is with the -c lenses and will they hold their values once cheaper full frame dslrs hit the market.

Oooooo please bring camera toys when you come. Hopefully I will have a 30D to play with then!