Not sure Im happy with my 70-200mm is mkii

[peterborough_photography]

All the photos taken were hand held.


Most shot at 200mm, using a Eos 50d.


The rhino picture was shot f3.5, 1/640s at iso 100 hand held.


I dont like the area at the bottom of the picture which is going out of focus, I have tried 3 of these lenses and they all do the same. Although not on every shot.


I dont like messing about in photoshop to much, only when I do weddings and commercial stuff. For my own photos I want to shoot the scene as the camera captures it. All files shot in Raw with no change to the orginal file apart from a change to JPEG.


Focus was centre, with auto white balance, shot in AV mode.


Im not sure now if this is more to do with the 50d focus zones than the lens ?

[elmo_2006]

All the photos taken were hand held.


Most shot at 200mm, using a Eos 50d.


The rhino picture was shot f3.5, 1/640s at iso 100 hand held.


I dont like the area at the bottom of the picture which is going out of focus, I have tried 3 of these lenses and they all do the same. Although not on every shot.


I dont like messing about in photoshop to much, only when I do weddings and commercial stuff. For my own photos I want to shoot the scene as the camera captures it. All files shot in Raw with no change to the orginal file apart from a change to JPEG.


Focus was centre, with auto white balance, shot in AV mode.


Im not sure now if this is more to do with the 50d focus zones than the lens ?

How far were you from the subject?

[peterborough_photography]

SHOT at least 50-70ft AWAY FROM RHINOS

[Richard Lane]

Hi Paul,


Beautiful Wedding Photos on your Website!


What time of day were these shot?


You mentioned that you were happy with your other lenses. I'm assuming that you meant you were happy with these lenses on the same 50D Body?


Is 70-200mm the longest lens in your kit?


As you are aware, the 200mm on the 1.6x crop (320mm) is going to give you a narrower angle of view, whichtranslates into agreater amount of image compression, as well asa shallower DOF, especiallyat the wider aperture.


It sounds like you like your first two photos better, because you have one subject and one background, so you are achieving your desired background blur, however in the rhino photos; you stated that you didn't like the OOF grass, so, you will have to treat the foreground grass as an additional subject in the photo, so as Neuro stated above you will need to stop down a bit.


You mentioned that you don't like to process your RAW personal photos out of the camera. I think that is a mistake, because RAW photos require some processsing, a simple jpeg conversion doesn't provide the neccessary adjustments. So, I would recommend that you make some minor adjustments in DPP or shoot in jpeg and RAW, or last choice shoot in jpeg only.


I'm assuming you are using a UV filter on your lens, but if you're shooting in overhead sunlight, then you should really try a Circular Polarizing filter in order to avoid that washed out flat look and desaturation of the colors.


Rich

[Fast Glass]

Here is a picture that has foreground blur, that is not a lens defect but something longer focal lengths have. But also shorter focal lengths too if the DOF is thin such as a 50mm prime shot low to the ground.


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John.

[Richard Lane]

Great Shot John and Nice Color Saturation too!


Of course this is beautiful green grass vs. dead grass in the OP's photos.


I personally like the foreground and background blur.


Rich

[neuroanatomist]

John's image above reminded me of a similar shot (albeit less saturated!) I took with myEF 70-200mm f/2.8<span style="color: red;"]LIS II USM a couple of months ago. The point of the shot for me was the power of f/2.8 + excellent IS and a long focal length - this is an uncropped (but reduced in size) shot taken qith 1/30 s exposure, f/2.8, about 30 minutes after sunset - it was dark enough to see stars, yet I was able to get a decent exposure. But here you can clearly see both foreground and background blur - the DoF is sufficiently thin that even though the rabbit's eye is in focus, the whiskers pointing toward the camera are getting blurred out just like the foreground, due to the thin DoF.


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So, I think the point we're making is that what you're seeing is perfectly normal for this focal length and a relatively wide aperture. If it doesn't appeal to you, that's just fine, too - as you stated in your post title, Paul -youmay not be happy with the lens, even though it's performing as expected.

[peterborough_photography]

At last, yes Im not sure Im happy with the results from the longer focal range lens.


I normally use primes, this is my first big zoom.


So the normally quality isnt rocking my boat. The lens can produce sharp, it may take some time to get the feel for the 200mm and the DOF around the length eg The Rhino photo.


Thanks for the response. I must add I do use photoshop with raw images for clients not really for myself, thats due to time etc.

[Schroeter Imagery]

Man I like the duck shot... nice work

[neuroanatomist]

The rhino picture was shot f3.5, 1/640s at iso 100 hand held.


I dont like the area at the bottom of the picture which is going out of focus, I have tried 3 of these lenses and they all do the same. Although not on every shot.

The foreground blur results from basic photographic optics - depth of field. Based on 200mm on a 50D and the size of a rhino, I'm guessing you're around 13 meters from them. At 200mm f/3.5 and 13 meters from subject, your DoF is about 0.5 meters. You've probably got 2 meters of grass in the foreground, which is going to be progressively more out of focus further from the subject. Stopping down to f/8 or f/11 will increase your DoF, but even at f/11 your DoF for the distances above would be under 2 meters, meaning you'd still have some foreground blur.


For many, the ability to blur the foreground and background with a wide aperture, which serves to isolate the subject and add impact to the picture, is one of the big reasons to use a dSLR. Going from a 1.6x crop like your 50D to a FF camera like the 5DII enhances that effect, since the crop factor also applies to aperture as it affects DoF. A point-and-shoot camera, with a much smaller sensor, cannot achieve the thin DoF you get with a dSLR. This is why dSLR landscape shooters use wide angle lenses and very narrow apertures (and tripods for the long exposure times which result from the very narrow apertures). But those long exposures are not so good for wildlife. If you really want to have the whole image in focus, crisp from close foreground to distant background, and still keep a reasonably fast shutter speed, one way to achieve that for this type of shot would be with a P&amp;S camera.


I suspect most of us were having trouble seeing the 'flaw' in the rhino picture because that sort of subject isolation is a often considered a desirable effect. Imagine your zebra picture if the fence in the background was clearly in focus - personally, I would not want that.