Tried the 70-300 IS USM today.

Adey

Adey

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Well i was so exited today by the prospect of trying out my father-inlaw's (newly purchased) 70-3000 IS USM. He asked me to help his team out today because ...well 1 he's got 2 prolapsed vertabre:eek:, and he's kinda been my mentor over the last few months since getting into togging.

So i take off my trusty Tamron 55-200 and stick on the 70-300 IS USM, on a 400d this thing is pretty big, so i was happy so far:cool:

Then i go and turn the zoom and holy jesus its a bit friggin stiff innit? "Its *** its new" he says....ooookay, Carpal tunnel for me later.

Then i have a go at focusing, and the IS seems to be going a bit nuts, every time i engage focus or move the lens the image jerks about. IS was set to mode 2 (panning) btw. Tried it on both settings, got same result.

Buy the end of the second half i feel like i've got the hang of it a bit more, so i reclaim some optimism. Then i upload all the pics to the netbook, only to discover that every pick beyond 100mm is soft and every pic beyond 200 is just ghastly, woefully soft, even at high shutter speeds (1000+) towards 300mm there is not a sharp pixel to be found anywhere in the image. I had IS (albeit freaky IS) and used a mono-pod, how at 2000/s can the whole image be blurry?

So i go back to my Tammy for the second half, felt like having my hands untied.

So, what could be going on here, i know this lens is no L lens, but its still a well respected and highly regard lens, especially for the price right?

Has my father inlaw got a duffer? The shots i took under 100mm were nice and sharp, bit sharper than my tammy maybe, but not that noticeable. The soft shots im talking about are not from camera shake or being out of focus. Most of the long shots you can still see the band of focus across the pic but it is just soft, pixel peeping shows no trails, its just softness.

The sharpness issue is bad enough but given the dodgy IS and ultra stiff zoom ring, i cant see me buying one, its dropped well off my wish list.

Adey
 
I'd have said it were a duffer since you mentioned the zoom being tight. I tried a 28-135 in Jessops and the zoom was so tight it "jerked" as I moved it. I promptly handed it back to the salesman...
 
Mine's a bit tight... plus the IS rumbles and you don't get full time manual focus and the front rotates.... but it's relatively cheap and IQ is at least ok but I'd say that mine is better than ok.
 
Yeah it should be better than ok, IQ wise, it should be good from what i've read anyway.

Must be a duff, im convinced, i use a £80 tamron, this lens should outperform my tammy in every department, comfortably. Maybe i should get him to do some tests, he has hardly used it because of his injury so it wont do any harm anyway.

hhhmm a 70-200 4L is looking more and more likely. Its gonna put the purchase date back a fair bit though..:eek:
 
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Must be a duffer, these are really good lenses for the money....

Exposure Time 1/1250
Aperture f5
ISO 800
Focal Length 105

2624996375_1c17db0b1e_o.jpg



Exposure 1/200
Aperture f5.6
ISO 200
Focal Length 300mm


2763102429_7434bb81b3_o.jpg


Steve
 
Jelster its hard to tell much from those small samples, taking an un-cropped frame and showing at 800px is gonna look sharp whatever lens you use. I do appreciate you posting those samples though, you've got some lovely wildlife stuff in your flickr.

I-S i've got some samples here (Full size) that are straight from the camera. I've noticed something though, the shots are all slightly underexposed so i dunno if that could make a difference, dont see why it should, low key doesnt have to mean soft surely?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian_deans/sets/72157625206673341/

Had a look through my other photos taken witht he Tamron, and the only ones that are as soft aree the ones at 1600 ISO, yesterdays game was shot at 400 ISO.
 
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Can you post the full exif, what focus did you use? I found with the 400d, that the camera would sometimes try to take a photo before the IS was spun up fully, the focus would sometimes lock prior to the IS being spun up as well. On one of the ball shots, it looks like there is a double-image, which would be what I would epect in this situation.
Did you try it without IS on?
 
Adey said:
Jelster its hard to tell much from those small samples, taking an un-cropped frame and showing at 800px is gonna look sharp whatever lens you use. I do appreciate you posting those samples though, you've got some lovely wildlife stuff in your flickr.
Click to expand...

Here you go, full size jpg of the Cheetah image. Clicky

Steve
 
Adey said:
Jelster its hard to tell much from those small samples, taking an un-cropped frame and showing at 800px is gonna look sharp whatever lens you use. I do appreciate you posting those samples though, you've got some lovely wildlife stuff in your flickr.

I-S i've got some samples here (Full size) that are straight from the camera. I've noticed something though, the shots are all slightly underexposed so i dunno if that could make a difference, dont see why it should, low key doesnt have to mean soft surely?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian_deans/sets/72157625206673341/

Had a look through my other photos taken witht he Tamron, and the only ones that are as soft aree the ones at 1600 ISO, yesterdays game was shot at 400 ISO.
Click to expand...

They look out of focus to me. Try focusing on steady target first, to rule out the influence of duff 400D AI-Servo.
 
Thanks for the cheetah pic Jelster, nothing wrong there thats for sure.

daugirdas, im sure most of them are not OOF, you can see a 'band' of the focus plane across the images, and this band is where the subject is most of the time. Either way some part of the image has got to be in focus, even if its not where i intended.

I was using single shot so i can see where that woud cause a problem with IS. I didnt try it without IS on either, should of really.

For the shots taken with the goalkeeper, in single shot i pre-focused well in advance allowing the IS plenty of time to get up to spin. I was shooting for that goalies team so i purposefully focused on the goal whenever the opposition got near the final third.

I guess it means i should be using AI servo with back-button focusing, but the trouble there is what i talked about in the thread regarding back button focusing. Someone in that thread says to allow up to a second to allow AI servo to track the target's path and speed before taking a shot, but like i said footballers and animals dont tend to run in one direction at the same speed for as long as a second anyway, by the time a second comes around they could slow down, stop, change direction or alter their path.

Can anyone suggest a test for me where i can test AI servo? So far i've tried tracking other cars on the motor way, birds, footballs, cats, walking towards a brick wall, all with no success?
 
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Well, I reckon to test, you could ask someone to stand 30 yards away, 10 yards to your right/left, and to kick a ball which you are focusing on slowly 45 degrees across you?
That should be a reasonably repeatable test.

The sign on : http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian_deans/5154612722/sizes/o/in/set-72157625206673341/ appears to be nearing focus at one point, so perhaps you need to shoot at above f/5.6? (You appear to have the light for it, would reduce you to 1/1600? The IS of course primarily is to help you at lower shutter speeds, so perhaps it just wasn't necessary?)

If you think that AI servo might not have been able to cope with the change in placement, then I suspect that you have not given the IS time to spin up when you initiated the AI Focus
 
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The samples certainly don't look any good at all.

Is there a filter on the lens? I ask because several things could be caused by a cheap and nasty filter - there's some diagonal lining in the bokeh which shouldn't be there, and huge amounts of CA on the advertising boards in the background. The one with the player in blue with 4 on his shirt jumping shows some strange bloom on the 4.

If there's no filter then I really would think that there's something seriously wrong with that lens.
 
I-S said:
......... The one with the player in blue with 4 on his shirt jumping shows some strange bloom on the 4.
Click to expand...

I agree with your other comments, but maybe that's a sweat patch ??

But have to concur, there's something very "not right" with that set....

Steve
 
Well IS, its funny you say that because there was no filter used, so that diagonal blur thing sounds worrying. I cant see any CA in the ad boards though.

Tbo i think some of the shots can be explained by using single shot with IS when taking multiple shots, so that the IS is jerking just as i take a shot. But the keeper shots im 100% i did everything i should as far as focus, i've used my 18-55is plenty of times to know how to focus, recompose, wait, then shoot.

What i'll do is get my father-inlaw to do some 300mm tests with tripod/mirror lock/timer, and i'll have a practice at AI servo (on my tammy of course) before next saturdays game. See if i can find a way for it to work for me.
 
something sounds wrong. I have this lens and the zoom is fine. IS is a lil noisy but mine has always worked superb in mode 1, never really tested mode 2. never had any problems and has always give great images. maybe a tiiny bit soft at 300mm but nothing a little PP wouldnt sort out.
 
Have a look at this thread for "a bit of a discussion" about the 70-300.

70-300 image quality thread

I think it has it's good points, stay below 200mm and it gives my 70-200L a good run for it's money in some situations. The main point is the next step up from this lens is awhole lot more money so learn to live with it's shortcomings.

I would not use the IS for anything other than a stationary subject, or something coming straight towards you (or going away come to that).

The IS is quite an old design and althoguh it does work it's not as good as on the newer lenses.

HTH

David
 
Thanks Robbo and David!

I think im gonna save for the 70-200 f4L, constant aperture would be great for manual mode without stopping down, for when the light is on the low side. And the superior IQ should mean i have more ability to crop.

I wish there was a 55-250 f/4L for around £500 quid though, that would be a dream purchase for me.

Thanks for all your help everyone, i'll have a read through that link aswell Dave.

Adey
 
Adey said:
Thanks Robbo and David!

I think im gonna save for the 70-200 f4L, constant aperture would be great for manual mode without stopping down, for when the light is on the low side. And the superior IQ should mean i have more ability to crop.
Click to expand...

After much deliberation I bought a 70-200 F4 IS and a 1.4 extender.

Given the cost I am very pleased to report I have never been happier with a lens purchase. The IS is awesome, as is the IQ. I just need to buy a 7D now to give it a good test :D

David
 
Well David, i'd be going for the non IS version, but do you have any ictures i can pixel peep at, im interested to see how much it resolves on a 10mp. My lenses are about 1-2 pixels soft, so i'd imagine your 70-200 would completely resolve on a 40d wouldnt it?

if im being confusing i mean if you take a picture of a perfectly straight, level edge, you should be able to zoom in and see that the edge is represented by a single pixel. I.e on a bar-code you'd have a black pixel right next to a white pixel, no greys in between.

Make sense?

Adey
 
Adey, done get too carried away with pixel peeping.

I went through a big stage of pixel peeping when i started and got obsessed with it, to the point where it took the fun out of photography for me.......
 
I had the non-IS 70-200 F4L for many years and it's a fine lens.

I just upgraded to the IS version, however, as there are many situations where I missed the IS. It is a much more expensive lens and there's little if any optical benefit compared to the non-IS lens in other ways.
 
Robbo said:
Adey, done get too carried away with pixel peeping.

I went through a big stage of pixel peeping when i started and got obsessed with it, to the point where it took the fun out of photography for me.......
Click to expand...

I only wanna pixel peep because i interested in how much i could crop with this lens, which i'd need to if i got the 70-200 instead of the 70-300.

:D
 
You don't need to pixel peep to see that there was something wrong with those football shots. It was very difficult (impossible) to locate anything that looked really sharp anywhere in most of the frames. I'm wondering how much impact having Auto NR made. Probably not much, but worth experimenting. To be honest, from what I've seen of Ade's results I can't help thinking the lens was a dud. Rather than jumping ship to a shorter lens and cropping harder I'd look at exchanging the lens for a sharp copy - and shoot sports like football with IS off.
 
Adey said:
Well David, i'd be going for the non IS version, but do you have any ictures i can pixel peep at, im interested to see how much it resolves on a 10mp. My lenses are about 1-2 pixels soft, so i'd imagine your 70-200 would completely resolve on a 40d wouldnt it?

Adey
Click to expand...

Like this, hope the EIXF is still intact. like I said, very happy with this lens.









And yes I do think it's out resolving my 40D hence the wish to buy a 7D :D

HTH

David
 
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Wow David! Theres nothing soft about those pics.

Tim, untill he does a test we can only guess really so i'll make sure everyone's efforts isnt in vain, and i'll get him to do a test to make absolutely sure. If i could get pics nearly as sharp as David's, i'd be a very happy man.

Ade
 
Looks like a duff lens to me.

The bokeh looks totally wrong - especially since the lens is wide open.

But if you are thinking of a 70-200mm F4L then I would definitely recommend that lens - it's a cracking optic for the price and works well with a 1.4x too.
 
Adey said:
Wow David! Theres nothing soft about those pics.

Ade
Click to expand...


Just to be clear the above 4 pictures were taken with my 70-200 f4 IS L NOT my 70-300 USM f4-5.6

David
 
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