70-200mm F/4L IS v 55-250mm IS Review

BigRuss

BigRuss

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Russell
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Hi all

I hired an F/4 IS this weekend, to compare it against my 55-250 to see if it was worth the upgrade,

While it seemed to focus a little quicker, it wasn't by a massive amount, but I've always found my 55-250 very good anyway.

But to be honest the step up in image quality was, if pixel peeping noticeable but negligible :shrug:

I've either got a very good 55-250 and the f/4L I received under performed, or there's not a great deal of difference between the two ?

I've been out all day with them, but never compared shots like for like, so I just called in at the local park and took a few quick snaps to see for sure.

These below are 100% crops, all taken at 200mm on both lenses, but I did try at 100mm as well and the results were the same.

Go compare

55-250
49086988.jpg


F/4 L
49087002.jpg


55-250
49087012.jpg


F/4 L
49087025.jpg
 
The image of the duck looks a bit miss focussed or something.

Is the AF accuracy OK?
 
tris101 said:
What were your settings out of intrest?
Click to expand...

Taken on AV, I set the f/4L to f/5 , and the 55-250 was at it's minimum at 200mm of f/5.6

Shutter speed varied from 1/200th to 1/320th

Auto ISO between 100-200
 
Were these handheld? Just asking..cause I notice the second pic (the first one with the f4L) was shot at 1/200th. You will struggle to handhold that lens at that focal length and get a sharp shot. Your focal length needs to at least equal your shutter speed in a lot of cases (but dont forget youre using that 200mm lens on a crop body, so your effective focal length is 200mm x 1.6 = 320).

Dont get me wrong..the 55-250 is quite a decent lens for its cost, but the f4L is (to my mind anyway) the most bang for your buck that I ever bought. I really would expect there to be far more difference between the two...so I can only assume the conditions of the test were flawed :thumbs:
 
Thanks for your comments guys

To be honest I had quite a few shots with the f/4 that were OOF slightly, I don't know if this is what you call 'back focusing' ? but results are always a lot better with my 55-250...as I think they are in these images.

These are all 100% crops remember ....which never look as good as I thought they would do when I bought the camera :shrug:

The 55-250IS held it's own and more, and I for one won't be rushing out and buying the f/4 after today
 
Also the L delivers edge-to-edge on full-frame and is weather sealed. And it's white too :)
 
DaveRed said:
Were these handheld? Just asking..cause I notice the second pic (the first one with the f4L) was shot at 1/200th. You will struggle to handhold that lens at that focal length and get a sharp shot. Your focal length needs to at least equal your shutter speed in a lot of cases (but dont forget youre using that 200mm lens on a crop body, so your effective focal length is 200mm x 1.6 = 320).

Dont get me wrong..the 55-250 is quite a decent lens for its cost, but the f4L is (to my mind anyway) the most bang for your buck that I ever bought. I really would expect there to be far more difference between the two...so I can only assume the conditions of the test were flawed :thumbs:
Click to expand...

Dave

Both sets of shots were handheld, but both have IS so 1/200th should be more that enough to get crisp shots.

Honestly I really wanted to be wowed by the f/4 because I wanted to buy one, but on this evidence i'll not be bothering.
 
Ahh I missed the IS bit. Note to self...read it properly.
Having said that, i'd still expect the L to perform a lot better than that. To this day, some of the stuff I shoot with mine still blows me away, and thats non-IS.
 
Something is misfocusing there (assuming you're focusing on the duck!). Whilst I do get some OOF images, this is more representative of the 70-200 F4L:
IMG_6966.jpg


Focused on the right eye...
 
manualfocus-g said:
The 2nd shot is definately suffering camera shake and the forth doesn't look like camera shake or a soft lens to me, rather the duck was moving faster than your shutter speed allows :)
Click to expand...

Forgetting Camera shake and fast moving ducks :thinking: (the one at the rear isn't moving ?) for a moment.

As much as I wanted to love my 1st venture with an 'L'

Fact's is facts, the 'camera doesn't lie' as they say, both lenses captured images in exactly the same conditions and produced very similar output,(in fact the 55-250 IMHO performed slightly better, the pictures tell the story :shrug:

I'm sorry if this goes against the grain, I'm just going on what I see
 
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I've owned both of those lenses and although the 55-250 is a good consumer lens, the 70-200L ****es over it with IQ.
I'd like to see the exif data for your shots because they are soft, suffering camera shake, focal points seem to have been lost and focus issues.


Canon 55-250
2793638686_248c845bb7_z.jpg


Canon 70-200L
4828292098_98ed42d369_z.jpg


Sorry if I am sounding harsh but the photos should be a lot sharper from both lenses.
 
hashcake said:
I've owned both of those lenses and although the 55-250 is a good consumer lens, the 70-200L ****es over it with IQ.
I'd like to see the exif data for your shots because they are soft, suffering camera shake, focal points seem to have been lost and focus issues.

.
Click to expand...


Hi Daz

I'm not saying you can't get excellent shots from both, and I have, I got some crackers with the f/4 yesterday which I posted on another thread, have also had similar from the 55-250.

All the exif data is intact, and if you have zoom browser or similar it will show you the focal point is on the feathers on both.

All i'm saying is, in this test, which the settings and variables,camera shake included were the same for both lenses, I think the 55-250 produced slightly better results.

I thought the same throughout today...which made me try them side-by-side as such.

I'll say again, I REALLY wanted the F/4 to blow me away, but it didn't
 
jm2 said:
@ BigRuss, what do the full images look like resized.
Click to expand...

Jim, I think you can't really tell the quality of an image on a re-sized version,

This is one of the original images, so you can see how much it's cropped, we are really pixel peeping here, but I was just testing the 2 lenses out

49096092.jpg


Bigger (click the image again for full size)
 
Don't take too much attention to processing, I quickly ran the photo through auto setting in Lighroom.

100% Crop
5503939933_73b08f812d_o.jpg


Just his head
5503940147_01a91489c3_o.jpg



How far away from the birds were you?
I was only a few feet from the fox.

The RAW file of thr squirrel is archived on DVD, I don't have time to go through them at the moment.
 
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BigRuss said:
Jim, I think you can't really tell the quality of an image on a re-sized version,

This is one of the original images, so you can see how much it's cropped, we are really pixel peeping here, but I was just testing the 2 lenses out

49096092.jpg


Bigger (click the image again for full size)
Click to expand...


No wonder there is such massive loss of IQ.
You were quite some distance from the birds.
You are entering the realms of lenses like the Canon 100-400L IS and Sigma 150-500 OS if you want such tight crops to be able to retain a higher IQ.



I was at least 15 feet from this manderin duck when I took the shot @ 400mm.
I wouldn't have expected to get a crop as tight with my 70-200L IS f/4 without some drop in IQ.

5478344177_b7c5f0e0aa_b.jpg
 
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I was about 15 feet away.

I guess the pic was virtually 100% crop in the original post ? as there's not a great deal of different in size to those in the last post. compared to the difference in my original and cropped version ?
 
hashcake said:
No wonder there is such massive loss of IQ.
You were quite some distance from the birds.
You are entering the realms of lenses like the Canon 100-400L IS and Sigma 150-500 OS if you want such tight crops to be able to retain a higher IQ.



I was at least 15 feet from this manderin duck when I took the shot @ 400mm.
I wouldn't have expected to get a crop as tight with my 70-200L IS f/4 without some drop in IQ.
Click to expand...

:bang: lol, I know this lol...I wasn't saying either were going to be the best pics in the world...I was just comparing like for like :thumbs:
 
BigRuss said:
:bang: lol, I know this lol...I wasn't saying either were going to be the best pics in the world...I was just comparing like for like :thumbs:
Click to expand...

My mistake but I'm sure I'm not the only one who was thinking the same.

Take the same photo with both lenses using the same static subject, do a 100% crop then post them here.
There are too many variables with your previous test subjects to make any real determination.
 
THe images you posted are not very good for comparing Russ.... Cropping in like ths is a useless test.

Get closer and get the exposure right and you'll have a better change of seeing any differences..... The BIGGEST difference is the extra stop of light! At 200mm you need a shutter speed that is equivalent. Much hards to achieve with the 55-250 in lower light.
 
BigRuss said:
Forgetting Camera shake and fast moving ducks :thinking: (the one at the rear isn't moving ?) for a moment.

As much as I wanted to love my 1st venture with an 'L'

Fact's is facts, the 'camera doesn't lie' as they say, both lenses captured images in exactly the same conditions and produced very similar output,(in fact the 55-250 IMHO performed slightly better, the pictures tell the story :shrug:

I'm sorry if this goes against the grain, I'm just going on what I see
Click to expand...

Hello

Just so you understand, I am no L lens fan :) I mainly use manual focus lenses, so there is no bias in my observations.

The images weren't captured in exactly the same conditions...if they were you would have the same subject and simliar image twice. In between changing lenses, the lighting could change and ducks can move ;)

As for camera shake etc. I'm afraid that if you don't get the technique right, any lens will look poor. Clearly there is differences in depth of field or focus points in these images as well and the duck at the rear is out of focus...I was talking about the one at the front.

What I will say is that the "nifty-two-fifty" has a great reputation and if you don't need the speed the 70-200mm gives you, it may well suffice. What the L lens will *probably* give you is a slightly sharper image wide open, fasting focusing and less colour fringing around highlight edges.

Good luck with whichever lens you decide to keep hold of :)
 
I not super brilliant(yet) at taking photos but have had and used(including 55-250 IS) many budget zooms and then I got the F4L non IS and having the lens for 20 mins I got this, something I would have never got so well or as easy on any of the zooms I had before..

5404025491_36a152c1af_z.jpg


cropped and quality battered by pbucket..

IMG_0321-1.jpg


pretty much confirmed it was money well spent over the others..
 
As the above have said this is a meaningless test unless the test was to take some less than average quality photos under different conditions to make a bad point.
 
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