Results from a four day test of the 300 2.8L. I had ordered this lens once way back in ’92 via a friend of my in L.A. About a month later when the lens still had not arrived at his door step I got cold feet and changed my order to the 4L version instead. Anyhow….. that’s a long time ago but the idea of this lens has popped up many times since. When the opportunity came up to try one out I jumped at it right away - (A big THANK YOU to the lender) and I must say I tried to make the most of it. It was peak soccer season and I covered eight games in 4 days. A bit too much in honesty but now that I had the beast I was going to make the most of it.
Great joy to rig the lens on a monopod – first observation – a nice bright view finder at this focal length and focus tracking seems OK on my 20D. A pleasure to use a professional solidly constructed tool. It’s heavy of course but using it on the monopod is not a problem at all. Handheld is another story. I tried if for a bit but the result is some annoying strain on your wrist. Downloading the first batch of photos from this lens I immediately noticed the high image quality. I would pair it close to the shots I get from my 135L. It felt almost like I was cheating :D. It will indeed be impossible to copy this performance with any compromise as in the 4L, a 70-200 with a 1.4x converter or 100-400L. As a side note I did get a chance to try the 70-200/1.4x combi also but compared to the 300 2.8L the results were less than desirable to say the least. Especially the bokeh takes a big dive. I'm talking about 70-200 2.8 w/ 1.4x compared to 300 2.8L. Of course not a surprise, but naturally I was looking for a cheaper route to more reach. The 1.4x converter works fine with the 300 2.8L especially when stopped down a notch.
I tried the 4L non-IS for soccer last spring and the 2.8L is clearly better in every way except of course for price and portability. The images with the 2.8L are sharper, have better contrast, color and the lens performs very well wide open. I am a big fan of shallow DOF. This proved to be a bit of risky game of course as you will get some OOF shots. You really come to appreciate how complex the whole thing can be and admire the pros that have to produce great results in all conditions.
The big question which may come up for shooters in the market for this lens should be: Do I find a good used copy of the 300 2.8L or do I opt for a new 300 2.8L IS. I do not have the answers to this as I don’t really know the used value out there and I have not tried the IS version. The 2.8L did not disappoint me one bit but I personally would probably opt for the IS version. I found that unless I had the 2.8L on a monopod it would be almost useless. I even tried a few portraits in the golden hour, using the monopod, shutter speeds around 1/200.. not enough.. The IS would probably have saved these shots.
Great joy to rig the lens on a monopod – first observation – a nice bright view finder at this focal length and focus tracking seems OK on my 20D. A pleasure to use a professional solidly constructed tool. It’s heavy of course but using it on the monopod is not a problem at all. Handheld is another story. I tried if for a bit but the result is some annoying strain on your wrist. Downloading the first batch of photos from this lens I immediately noticed the high image quality. I would pair it close to the shots I get from my 135L. It felt almost like I was cheating :D. It will indeed be impossible to copy this performance with any compromise as in the 4L, a 70-200 with a 1.4x converter or 100-400L. As a side note I did get a chance to try the 70-200/1.4x combi also but compared to the 300 2.8L the results were less than desirable to say the least. Especially the bokeh takes a big dive. I'm talking about 70-200 2.8 w/ 1.4x compared to 300 2.8L. Of course not a surprise, but naturally I was looking for a cheaper route to more reach. The 1.4x converter works fine with the 300 2.8L especially when stopped down a notch.
I tried the 4L non-IS for soccer last spring and the 2.8L is clearly better in every way except of course for price and portability. The images with the 2.8L are sharper, have better contrast, color and the lens performs very well wide open. I am a big fan of shallow DOF. This proved to be a bit of risky game of course as you will get some OOF shots. You really come to appreciate how complex the whole thing can be and admire the pros that have to produce great results in all conditions.
The big question which may come up for shooters in the market for this lens should be: Do I find a good used copy of the 300 2.8L or do I opt for a new 300 2.8L IS. I do not have the answers to this as I don’t really know the used value out there and I have not tried the IS version. The 2.8L did not disappoint me one bit but I personally would probably opt for the IS version. I found that unless I had the 2.8L on a monopod it would be almost useless. I even tried a few portraits in the golden hour, using the monopod, shutter speeds around 1/200.. not enough.. The IS would probably have saved these shots.
