Hitting the limits of my lens

[Joel]

Thanks Oren! I try to do a bit of everything until I find my niche...


You got some great points there Feanor. Those did come up while thinking over this, but I just forgot to write them down


I know what you're saying MP. I'm a senior myself. A photo friend of mine is just the same. He uses his 70-200mm f/2.8 for just about anything.

[Backland Photography]

Hello Joel,


We have amongst others, the 24-70 2.8.


This is said to be a heavy lens by some and if your not accustomed to carrying weight, this could be true. For myself, I have no problem, my wife finds it a bit heavy to carry for an extended period. This may be because she prefers to use neck straps were as I do not like them and use hand straps instead. For SLRs we shoot with 1DMK11 bodies, and an Xti. The Xti with a battery grip is a very hand holdable body for an extended preiod. That being said I think the weight of the 24-70 may make this uncomfortably unbalanced (squewed to be front heavy) for long shoots, but that is just my opinion. The 24-70 lens only sees service on the 1D bodies.


An alternate for you may be Canons EFS 17-55 2.8. We used this lens on the Xti as a walk around como when we made our last trip to England. Optically it worked extremely well and the weight distribution was very usable. The lens performs better than the purchase cost. It has been said on some sites that this lens could be deserving of an 'L' rating and we tend to agree. We are glad that it did not get this designation though as the price would quite likely have been much more.


On some sites you may find that the 24-70 gets less than favorable reviews. In our case the lens has performed very well and we would not consider giving it up. The deignation of our lens is 327018.


We hope this little bit of insight helps in some way. Happy shooting and be safe!!!!!

[Joel]

Thanks for your reply Backland! I've been out of town for a few days, but I finally took the plunge and picked up my first f/2.8 zoom. I'll try to return to this thread and post my findings as I go.


I picked the 24-70 over the 17-55 for its EF mount. The weight is - up till now - not an issue for me. Yes it's more cumbersome, yes it's big and when picking up this piece of great glass I felt clumsy. I experienced the same feeling when picking up my first DSLR. This will take me a few shoots to get used. The only thing what comes up to me is the lenshood. The hoods of my consumer level Canon lenses seem to slip on and off way smoother (I'm sure I put them on correctly [], but I guess it will just have to wear in a bit. I noticed the same thing with the 70-200 f/2.8 from a friend of mine.


After some in house pictures I repacked my Lowe Pro Flipside 400AW bag and took some pictures of a field hockey game. The AF is just super fast, the colors and contrast awesome. This lens doesn't excel on the sportfields hence it short focal length, but when the players do get close, I was able to get some pretty cool shots (limited by my lack of experiencing in sports photography.)


I'll be covering a local golf tournament tomorrow for the whole day and hopefully show/tell you my new findings


Cheers,


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