Should I buy 80-200mm AF-S or VR for a film camera

My 80-200 AF-S F2.8 was an absolute world class lens... It doesn't come any better than that...

 

denny

The 70-200 AFS VR is great on my F5! No reason to lose any sleep over it

I love my 80-200 2.8 but Id probaly get a VR for the simple fact that it weighs less.

"I use my 70-200 on an F100 to shoot sports and I get excellent results. Even if I had a D3, I'd use it. The lens is only soft in the very corners - not an issue for the types of photography that I do with 35mm gear"

 

Not just the very corners, count on shaving off something like 450 pixels from each corner to cut off the worst of the smeared detail. That substantially reduces the usable frame area of a D3 when used for certain applications.

 

Sure medium format and large format are preferable for landscapes, I use medium format whenever practicable, but for some of the places I visit and often the volume of shooting performed they are out of the question.

 

Anyone thinking of buying a 70-200mm for full frame use - in applications where corner to corner sharpness is critical - should either test the lens in the desired application before buying (you may well be very disappointed in what you find - I was) or buy the current 80-200mm f2.8 which performs beautifully at the expense of more CA which is by far a lesser evil.

I have shot with the 70-200 VR only one time. This was back in 2003 and I had it

mounted on my F100. I found all the photos were sharp from corner to corner. I think

there is sample variation. I've made prints from some of these and they are outstanding.

Here is a gallery of the photos I took for reference, it is the final landing of BA Concorde

G-BOAG at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA. I'll never forget this day. The pilots left

the engines running for a good 12-13 minutes after the tires were chocked...

 

http://hull534.smugmug.com/gallery/3773064_TKtkN/1/292641495_xpYg4

Dave, to get the soft corners effect with the 70-200 you need to shoot at a wide aperture (e.g. f/2.8) or use the long end (200mm). It doesn't show if you show scans of mounted slides like that (with the corners of the frame not visible at all).

Ilkka, a typical 35mm slide mount only covers up a tiny area around the edges of a 35mm slide. I wish the problem with the 70-200mm/f2.8 AF-S VR were only in the covered up area; in that case it would have been no big deal at all.

 

As the way it is now, on an FX-format DSLR, the edge is rather poor. Unfortunately, even stopping down doesn't fix the problem. I have posted the attached image before. It was shot at 200mm, f5.6, 1/640 sec on a D3 body.<div></div>

Shun, in a round-cornered 35mm slide mount (look at Dave's link) quite a bit of the area of the corners are covered (well my recollection of such mounts is from my dad's library of 1980s Kodachromes where the mount covered a LOT!). In a normal mount, only a small area is covered and there are mounts which show the full frame.

 

Anyway, my point is really that I sincerely do not believe that the blurry corners are related to digital capture. I can't think of a good physical explanation why there would be a problem specific to digital capture with a long lens (especially considering that the effect is the most obvious at 200mm). Also, my experiences with my film bodies mirror what I am seeing with the D3. To see the softness one needs to go to comparable magnifications to the D3 crops, not web sized full frame images.

 

I'm testing my brother's 80-200/2.8 (two-ring AF-D) and it has very nice performance in the corners, I was actually quite surprised. Though it's not as good as the 180mm prime, it's entirely acceptable for me. It isn't as good in the center as the 70-200 (which can be a problem with high-pixel-count DX bodies), has no AF-S and no VR obviously. I don't miss the VR (thanks to the D3's SNR), but AF-S would be very useful. Also, hard as it is to believe, I grew quite attached to the creamy bokeh of the 70-200 and its beautiful color rendition. I don't want to pay the current 2nd hand prices for the AF-S 80-200, here in Finland they're in the 1300EUR ball park (shudder).

 

My extremely positive experience with the quality of the new 24-70/2.8 suggests that Nikon's next f/2.8 telezoom will be the thing to have. In the mean while I will have to use non-AF-S autofocus. At least the motor won't break ;-) It's not too bad with the D3 actually.

Historically, I've resisted VR. Now that I am shooting with it, I must say that it is a very

big improvement in hand held shooting situations, even with shorter focal lengths. In

that case, go for the 70-200. On the other hand, if you shoot primarily on a tripod, then

it'd probably go with the 80-200 (less $$$), or even an 85/180 prime lens combination.

A lot depends on whether you're shooting FX, 35mm film, or DX, and whether your subjects move and how much. I've found that with DX I could take advantage of VR often with the 70-200. It allows e.g. using 1/160s at 200mm (x1.5 crop), which is really nice. But then in the same situation I can just shoot at 1/1000s with the D3, so I get greater certainty of avoiding subject movement or that and a smaller aperture if desired). In indoor light I think the f/2.8 aperture is a problem, VR or not. f/1.4 and f/2 work out better for me. With f/2.8 I'd need to go ISO 6400 often which is just not what I want to do). Of course with multiple exposures you can choose one which has the least subject movement. In any case the beautiful creamy rendition of skin with the 70-200 is definitely an asset. But I wonder how good the resale value of the 70-200 will be once the prosumer market is saturated with FX bodies.

As I mentioned in my earlier post (May 22, 8:21pm), I tested the 80-200mm/f2.8 AF-S and 70-200mm/f2.8 AF-S VR on my F5 with Veliva film, and I didn't think the corners looked too bad. I also don't have an explanation why it is so much worse on the D3.

 

Lens design involves a lot of compromises. I am sure Nikon can improve the corner performance, but the center will likely suffer a bit and/or the entire lens becomes even bigger and heavier. It is just like the new 24-70mm/f2.8 AF-S; it has terrible vignetting at 24mm, f2.8, but that is not a major issue in most real-life shooting situations. In particular, most vignetting can easily be corrected in post processing.

 

The current 70-200 performs much better (but not at the corners) at f4. Therefore, I try to use mine at no wider than f4 as much as I can. So one lens I'd like to see is a 70-200mm/f4 AF-S VR similar to what Canon has (in addition to the f2.8 version). That should solve a lot of the weight, cost, and quality issues.

Shun I see a lot of pro's shoot speakers with the Canon 70-200 F4 lens at conferences ( our home institution I know they have the f2.8 version available but still carry the thinner f4 lens) . With reasonable light or flash this lens seems to work well with the current Canon pro bodies. Of course a very shallow DOF is not needed there for good separation from the background since the background is usually a bit dark.

Could someone post a high-resolution scan of 35mm film image side by side with D3

image of the same situation and settings which illustrate that the effect is specific to

the D3? Just to establish whether there is an effect or not.

 

The 80-200/2.8 AF-D N is about 20% lighter than the 70-200. Therefore a new 70-

200 doesn't need to be bigger just to satisfy D3 users.

 

My copy of the 24-70 has just a trace of vignetting at f/2.8 at 24mm, made prints at

these settings and they look fine even without correction.

 

Canon's 70-200/4 IS seems to be really excellent based on photozone tests.

Ilkka, I think it is unfair to compare the sizes of the 80-200mm/f2.8 AF-D and the 70-200mm/f2.8 AF-S VR. The former has neither an AF-S motor nor any VR elements.

 

A closer comparison is the 80-200mm/f2.8 AF-S and 70-200. The 80-200 has a wider diameter but the 70-200 is a bit longer. I find the slimmer barrel on the 70-200 easier to hold with my left hand.

 

A 70-200mm/f4 AF-S VR will definitely be smaller and cheaper. Overall optical quality, especially at f5.6, f8 will likely be better than the f2.8 version. Personally I am not too concerned about depth of field. With the good high ISO capabilities of modern DSLRs, f4 should be acceptable. As I said, I am trying to use the 70-200mm/f2.8 at no wider than f4 anyway for image quality reasons.

 

What you really miss is the better AF because you get more light into the AF modules with f2.8. (Your always AF with the lens wide open regardless of what your actual shooting aperture is.) That can make some difference in really dark environments.

Although I have jumped in a bit late here I can categorically state that the same problem is perfectly visible on 35mm film too. When I first spoke to Nikon about this issue at the end of last year they suggested it might be specific to the D3. I shot a few frames on slide film which clearly displayed the fuzziness to an equal extent and sent that to them and that was the end of that.