I'm considering the Canon lens to replace my existing non-L 70 300 4-5.6 IS USM lens. I've read / viewed lots of good things about the latest Tamron SP 70-200MM F/2.8 Di VC USD A009, does anyone have / used the Tamron? Or should i just get the Canon which is so highly regarded?
Canon 70 - 200 2.8 IS II alternative?
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The Tamron is very tempting, it's price for performance seems outstanding and largely keeps up or not far behind the Canon.
I've considered this but think i'd always have the nag in the back of my mind that i wish i'd chosen one of the newer lens in the Tamron or Canon.
The tamron is sharp but I have heard a lot of people don't like the way the AF and VC works, so i would try before you buy. I am also under the impression that although it has similar sharpness when naked once you add a TC the Nikon and Canon v2 models clearly outperform the tamron (but I am not 100% certain of this but expect it is the case, the v1 Nikon is basically as sharp as the new model and the new canon but is much worse when TCs are attached and i've read people feel the old model nikon and new Tamron are very similar in behavior).
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whats a TC a Telescopic something?
Teleconverter. They basically take a sub-part of the image produced by the lens and project it onto a larger area, so the sensor will get a crop of the image the lens produces. This effectively gives you more reach, so a 200mm lens with a 1.4x TC will give you the effective focal length of 280mm.
The downsides to a TC is they degrade quality and since the images is stretched over a larger area you reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor and so the effective aperture decreases, a 1.x4TC looses one stop, so a 200mm f/2.8 lens would become a 28mm f/4.0 lens.
Depending on the quality of the lens you can get similar results simply cropping the image in software. However, if you have a goo quality lens then the TC normally gives better quality than digital cropping because the central portion of good lenses out-resolves the sensor and the anti-aliasing filter also reduces quality when cropping.
However oif the lens is not very sharp then you don't get much benefits, infact it can make things worse by slowing down auto-focus and giving you a slower aperture. For this reason TCs only work on certain lens. They are mainly mean for the big, expensive telephoto prime lenses like the 300mm and 400mm f/2.8 etc. They wont fit smaller lenses like a 50mm prime, and there would be no point, and the quality isn't very good.
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thankyou D.P. for a very educational and concise explanation.shant be needing one of those but at least I know what one is now.
Not sure if this helps in any way but I have the 70-200L f/2.8 II IS, and it's superb. One of the best lenses I've used, if not the best. Fast, sharp and a dream to use. The downside is the weight, dragging it around a race track or out and about becomes pretty tedious but the images make up for it.
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The Tamron may be excellent value for money and come close to the Canon in some ways but the Canon is still markedly superior, especially at the long end of the focal range.
Not saying the Tamron isn't a superb lens but you do get what you pay for and the Canon is expensive for a reason - nothing else can touch it.
Not saying the Tamron isn't a superb lens but you do get what you pay for and the Canon is expensive for a reason - nothing else can touch it.
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The canon 70-200 IS F2..8 V 1 is amazing, i really dont see the tamron being that much or any better, on top id guess the v1 still focuses faster, no brainer really
I had the f/2.8 IS Mk1 for a while but moved back to my original f/4 IS. The Mk1 is a good lens but it's noticably soft towards the long end wide open. After how razor sharp my f/4 IS was, this annoyed me.
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So the F/4 IS would be a good lens to get then for a reasonable sum?
I had a Sigma, then the original Canon, then the Canon IS mkI. Finally I gave up and bought the mkII! It's a lens I use a lot so I spoilt myself
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the price difference between an IS and non IS F/4 is around £500,does it really make that much difference.i guess if your on a tripod the answer is no?
Hand-held with static subjects, yes IS makes a huge difference.
Most or Canon's later-gen IS implementations will disable IS when it detects a tripod anyway, so no, on a tripod no real difference.
There are slight optical differences between the IS and non IS lenses by design (one or more of the elements are essentially floating), but in the case of the 70-200 f4 they are reportedly minimal. Both are great lenses and the non-IS version is a particular bargain.
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thank you,yes the non is is a very good price.