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05/21/2005 09:46:50 AM · #1 |
I finally had an opportunity to exercise my new Canon 70-300 IS DO at my son's Crew race yesterday. I shot the race itself (300mm is better than my 200 but it is still not quite enough since they always seem to be on the far side of our very wide Mohawk river).
Comments:
- Lens is a dream to carry, and feels really good on the camera as well
- 58 mm filter size is very convenient (though 62 would have been better since it would match my Sigma).
- I hadn't purchased a decent polarizer for it yet, but I used an inexpensive Tiffen I bought for the kit lens when I got my 300D
- Focusing is not as quick and as "sure" as the 70-200 F4L, but it does have ring USM and it's pretty quick.
- Colors are very nice, generally contrast is very good, but per an article I read (Luminous landscape, I believe), sometimes you need to do "Local Contrast Enhancement" on the images which really does make them pop (works well on other lens images too, before reducing).
- Bokeh looks good to me so far, I haven't seen any obvious "donut" bokeh
- The only bad thing: FLARE. This lens is very susceptible to flare when pointed towards the sun. But it seems to be much worse when using a filter than without. It does come with a very large lens hood.
Here are some samples. I thought this was a good one to start, because of the fine hairs highlighted in backlighting, and the bokeh. This shot is almost wide open. I'll post more in this thread later.
Oh, and I was running JPEG mode (first time in a long time) yesterday, because these were just photos for the race slide show and I thought it would be quicker and save memory):
Full frame, local contrast enhancement then reduce:
100% crop, no postprocessing (just crop of camera output)
Message edited by author 2005-05-21 09:58:18. |
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05/21/2005 10:33:18 AM · #2 |
| I just recently bought a used 70-300 DO IS from KEH, and I can't decide whether I like it or not. It focuses very nicely, the IS is amazing, and handling feels good. But it seems to be on the soft side when I compare it to either the kit lens or the 50 prime, just lacking edge fidelity and "pop". I can fix it with USM, but do I want to do that for every picture I take when I paid a premium for this lens? What is a good way to find out if I have a lemon? |
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05/21/2005 10:59:47 AM · #3 |
what does the "DO" suffix mean?
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05/21/2005 11:07:40 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by maxj:
what does the "DO" suffix mean? |
It means "Diffractive Optics". There is one optical element that is not a lens, but a diffractive element, and that makes the optical system much more compact and lighter.
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05/21/2005 11:38:18 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by janbruder:
I just recently bought a used 70-300 DO IS from KEH, and I can't decide whether I like it or not. It focuses very nicely, the IS is amazing, and handling feels good. But it seems to be on the soft side when I compare it to either the kit lens or the 50 prime, just lacking edge fidelity and "pop". I can fix it with USM, but do I want to do that for every picture I take when I paid a premium for this lens? What is a good way to find out if I have a lemon? |
Feel free to post some examples of shots you've taken, good and bad, in this thread.
As I mentioned, the Luminous Landscape article mentioned the 70-300 IS DO lacked the "pop", but this is something easily fixed using Local Contrast Enhancement. Also, note I don't have any lenses, including the 70-200/F4L, which pop without any sharpening at all (RAW), or any postprocessing. I started a thread about that, trying to see if anyone had a lens that was truly sharp even in RAW, but a few people seemed upset that I should ask for people to post RAW files in such an unscientific manner and basically shot down the thread (at least for me). But if you look at that thread, I posted some RAW unprocessed shots from most my lenses.
Now, back to working with the 70-300. If they lack pop, try doing a Local Contrast Enhancement. It's easy to do. Here's a tutorial:
Local Contrast Enhancement Tutorial
It's also worth reading the Luminous Landscape description of this.
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05/21/2005 11:39:33 AM · #6 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by maxj:
what does the "DO" suffix mean? |
It means "Diffractive Optics". There is one optical element that is not a lens, but a diffractive element, and that makes the optical system much more compact and lighter. |
I goofed on the title. Can you fix the title of this thread to be:
Canon 70-300 IS DO test shots - It's a great lens! |
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05/21/2005 12:28:33 PM · #7 |
The 70-300 IS DO is the ultimate in concealed telephoto lenses, and is great for candid shots, and possibly getting into sports events which restrict camera size (I'm not sure how common this is, but I heard of an event turning away anyone with a camera with a lens more than four inches long).
On the other hand, the sharpness is about the same or perhaps very slightly better than the 75-300 IS (only mediocre), and there may be some severe flare issues. Michael Reichmann reported having no difficulties with flare, even shooting into a bright sky, but you might want to take a look at the W. L. Castleman review, particularly the studio lighting example. |
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