Good for steady shot.

No zooming, too expensive with less use. Not usable everyday lens.

Lack of versatility, difficult to frame the subject especially in watching sports. What's the use of good optic if you're nail down in 200mm. I would spend money for either Sigma 70-200mm or Canon 70-200mm for better framing subjects. Zoom lens nowadays has better improvement.

Sharp
Black
Fast aperture
Affordable

No IS

Sharp wide open - sharper than 70-200L f/2.8 IS. Hand-holdable. Black. Affordable. Beautiful portraits and sports. Smooth bokeh.

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70-200L f/2.8 IS

Contrast, colour, sharpness - very good. AF very fast. With the Canon Extenders (1,4x and 2x) the Image Quality is almost preserved, with AF too. You can to have with them three lens: 200mm/2.8; 280mm/4; 400mm/5.6, all of them fully acceptable; (for analog cameras). For DSLRs we have (after the crop coefficient): 320mm/2.8; 450mm/4; 640mm/5.6.

One: it isn't zoom.

One of the sharpest Canon lens, comparable with 135mm f2. Great bokeh, contrast and colours. Not to big and heavy.

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Pentax SMC 200mm f4

Bokeh, price, black finish, BOKEH.
Lightweight and inconspicuous with fast focus.
You just have to use your feet and predict the crop before you raise the camera VF to your eye to get the right composition.
This one and the 135mm 2.0L are as good as it gets for fast tele primes.

None.

Heavenly Bokeh!
I have the 50 1.8 and 85mm 1.8 and this is even better.
Yes it's not a 70-200mm 2.8L IS zoom but it's light, black(inconspicuous)
and sharp.

Customer Service

none needed.

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20mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 50mm 1.8, 85mm 1.8, 100mm 2.0,
16-35mm 2.8

- Sharp even at F2.8, from corner to corner - No halos, no purple fringing - Light and compact compared to 70-200 zooms - Fast AF, very silent too - L quality built - Works well with extenders, delivering excellent result with the 1.4X. - Great bang for your buck if you find it used

- Lacks the versatility of a 70-200 zoom - No IS

Got mine used on eBay Italy in excellent conditions. No scratches, no dust. Looks like new. Actually it's the first model (mark I) with the built-in hood. This lens produces stunning pics! Great optics, wonderful bokeh (backgroung blur), corner sharpness just as good as in the center or at the edges. AF is fast even on my relatively slow Eos 300D (Digital Rebel) and quiet. The large aperture combined with great quality glass give you sharp pictures at 2.8 and allows a creative use of the depth of field. If you can live with the limitations of a fixed focal lens, and you need fast telephoto with great quality, buy it! Better if you can find it used, a real bargain. Coupled with a Tamron 1.4x extender give you a great 280mm F4, and keeps AF working. Almost no degradation in image quality, at least on a 300D/10D/D60. Definitely recommended.

Customer Service

None so far

Similar Products Used:

70-200 F2.8, both Sigma and Canon

Price: It's an affordable lens, and professional lens in every sense of the word. You can't find a better value in this focal length. Build quality: Solid feel that seems like it could be dropped off a cliff and survive. Sharpness: No better, except for the massively expensive 200mm f1.8 L. Speed: Fast f2.8 aperature makes a bunch more shots possible than the slower f5.6 I was using before. Retains AF even with 2x tele converter. Versatility: I am able to do a bunch of stuff with this lens, even more once I add a 2x teleconverter. Focusing: Fast, accurate, and silky smooth!

Did not come with tripod ring. Large 72mm filter size makes polarizing filters expensive!! I still have yet to buy one, though this filter size should be expected of such a fast lens.

I got this lens for a steal, $390 in brand new condition. I doubt if it had even been taken out of the box before. Anyway, I saw this lens right before going on a trip with my family to hawaii, and had to have it. I really wanted a the zoom 70-200mm f4 "L," but the price on this was so good I figured I could sell it on ebay for more than what i paid for it if I needed the versatility of the zoom. I do not regret this purchase at all. The lens is extremely solid, the exterior being almost all metal, yet not as heavy to hold as you might think. The autofocus is faster than anything I have ever used, and the manual focus is on a calibre I have never seen for an autofocus lens. The manual focus is so smooth and well made, if you had your eyes closed you would think it was a leica. That said, the glass is absolutely incredible. Paired with a slow smooth grained slide film like Kodachrome 64 I believe the results from this lens are much closer to the quality of medium format, than anything I had seen previously from 35mm. As far as handling goes, this lens can be handheld relatively easily, though with any telephoto, a tripod will help. As far as the obtrusiveness goes, I have the mk. II and without the lens hood on, most people dont' notice it too much. With the lens hood on it looks like it belongs on the sidelines of a sporting event. This lens is excellent paired with either the Elan 7e or 10d, having slightly better balance with the 10d's heavier body. Despite being prime lens, I find this to be extremely versatile for all the different types of photography I do. I work for my campus newspaper and routinely use this lens for sports and to take pictures of speakers that come to my university. The speed of the f2.8 is extremely helpful in both cases, and paired with a 420ex I can easily take perfectly exposed pictures of speakers from the very back of dark auditoriums. I also use this lens for landscape and portrait photography. It is not too long that it makes unnatural looking portraits, and the f2.8 is really helpful for background blur. I have been trying to use this lens for bird photography as well, and have had decent results, though it is a bit short. I am considering getting the 2x teleconverter this summer for use with it. The optics in this lens are so sharp, it sometimes makes me want to cry, it should deliver very acceptable results even with the teleconverter.

Customer Service

Pretty good, I've never had anything of mine break, but my mom dropped her A70 digicam and they fixed it free of charge even though it was blatantly obvious it was due to a drop.

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EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III EF 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 USM EF 70-200mm f4 L USM

Sharpness - and entirely usable wide open. High contrast, great bokeh. Fast focussing, no problems on my 10D. Small size (compared with a 70-200 zoom). Black (doesn't attract attention). Relatively low cost.

Lens hood a bit bulky.

This is my 2nd L lens (1st was 17-40). I bought the 200mm f2.8 L Mk.II from a London store, then proceeded to do some sight-seeing while I checked it out. My body is a 10D. Since I was in evaluation mode, I took almost every picture three times, at f2.8, f4 and f8. Since the weather was very fine it was a struggle sometimes to keep the required shutter speed at 1/4000 or below when at f2.8! The results are outstanding. I'm blown away by the sharpness, contrast, colour reproduction, and some of the other 'features' of this lens such as a wonderful perspective effect and great bokeh. I also did many tests at f2.8 to check out the focussing. This lens and my 10D perform flawlessly. There is a very slight drop-off in performance at f2.8, but from f4 up it is razor sharp. The f2.8 performance is still very good - I'm talking about differences only visible at 100% on a large monitor (which for me is an effective image size of 3 x 2 feet). This must be one of Canon's best lenses.

Customer Service

Not needed

Similar Products Used:

17-40mm f4L 50mm f1.8 Mk.II

Outstanding photo quality and built quality Fast and light for a 200mm lens Price is affordable for a L lens

Cannot zoom, less flexible than 70-200mm 200mm is really not long enough in many cases

I bought this lens after reading the comments in this site, and fully agree with the others that this is an excellent lens. Both the contrast and colour reproduction are outstanding, even for photos taken on a cloudy day. Before buying this lens I have a 75-300 IS USM, which can be used at a slower shutter speed but the picture quality is of no match. This lens is also better than the old FD 200mm 2.8 for non-autofocus Canon.

Customer Service

Not required

Similar Products Used:

FD 200mm 2.8 EOS 75-300mm 4-5.6 IS USM

- optical performance even wide open - fast and reliable AF (unlike most Sigma lenses) - relatively low weight compaired to equal performaing zoom lenses - very usable with 1.4x and 2x

- 72mm filters

I started of with a 50/1.8II. Then I added the 100/2.0 and the 28/2.8. This kept me happy for more than a year, but then the need grew for a longer tele lens. I considered the Sigma 180/3.5Macro, Sigma70-200/2.8, Canon 200/2.8L and Canon70-200/4.0 which are all in the same price-range. My choice finally went for the Canon 200/2.8L for the following reasons: - best optical peformance - lightest in weight - best and fastest AF, USM! - very acceptable performance with 1.4x or 2x extender - bright viewer The Canon70-200/2.8L was not within my budget. Results: The pictures I shot with this lens are amazing! I was already spoiled by the Canon100/2.0 portrait lens, but this one is even better. Great performance even wide open with beatyfull Bokeh. I use the 200/2.8 mainly for shooting children portrait. The longer focal length makes it easier to keep up with ever moving children.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 17-35 Sigma 24-70/2.8 Canon 28/2.8 Canon 50/1.8II Canon 100/2.0

• sharpness • contrast • AF speed • wide max aperture

• a little heavy

This is a fabulous piece of glass. I used this lens for the first time on a trip to Martha's Vineyard last spring. I will just say that seeing both my B/W and color prints was a religious experience. If you've never used a lens that makes your jaw drop at the results, this is an affordable way to do it. Tack sharp results at pretty much every f-stop. On the downside, I am a pretty big guy, and the weight of this lens made it something you could wear around your neck while sightseeing, but just barely. I would imagine smaller men and women might not want to lug this around for long.

Customer Service

haven't need it

Similar Products Used:

28mm f/1.8 USM Canon 50mm f/1.8 II Canon 100mm f/2.0 USM