I guess in the end, its which you want more at this point in your photography career... shooting sports as your kids grow ordoingstrobiststyle photos. I do both so I'm rather opinionated in this area... check out my bio for the links to my sports and studio photos.


The 70-200 is the best lens to get for that budget for soccer games (from the middle of the field to the side your on) but getting the f/4 over the f/2.8 would be a mistake imho. All school games are after school and depending on the time of year, games ran until dark which made even my 2.8 useless at some point during the game. forget using flash on the field. An f/4.0 will also limit you to outdoor shooting... there are many events that are held in school gyms that really require the f/2.8.


I've used my 70-200 f/2.8 (non-IS) for a couple years now and really want to move up to a 300 f/2.8 but don't see that happening anytime soon because of the cost. If I just bought an extender, that will bring my Ap down a stop to f/4 so thats not an option for me.


I also use the cactus triggers (ST-E2's actually)) but get frustrated with them every now and then when they keep going off on their own or sometimes not at all. They have a mind of their own and now that I've used those for a over a year, I'm ready to upgrade to PW's (used maybe). Its not a big deal except when your in somewhat of a hurry or are taking pics of big groups and they're all waiting on you to get that pic but you say "wait, one more, my flash didn't go off" or they went off on their own and then you take the pic and they're still charging so you have to tell them "wait,... one more time, then someone blinked, etc.,etc.,etc. Again, not a big deal but kind of a pet peeve of mine now.


Here's an example of a soccer game that ran til dusk and my f/2.8 was done for the night as all I can do is keep bumping up the ISO.f/2.8 ISO 400 or ISO 800 for the F4 lens,point here is there's probably only several more minutes that I could shoot as there's typically no field lights. Again, these are all just my $.02 but things to consider in making a good choice.


Dave


Dusk shot (panning at ISO 400)...





mid-field @200mm...





far-field @200mm (yellow card trip or #14 doing a head stand, not sure which [])...