Consumer telezoom lens shootout

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

I'm currently in the proccess of doing a comparison test between a

bunch of the better consumer telephoto zoom lenses.While it's

nowhere near finnished,those that are interested in such lenses may

be interested in the results so far.

<P>These lenses tend to be similar in performance at the shorter

ends while some really struggle at the long end so all i've tested

so far is sharpness at 300mm wide open.I'll do some very thorough

tests at all focal lengths and apertures at a later date,plus tests

for focus speed and other factors.

 

 

 

<P><P>Comments on the consistantcy of these lenses:

 

<P>The 75-300 is an easy one.I've owned or used over five of these

(various versions incl. the image stabilizer) and this one is a good

average example

 

<P>The 100-300usm is my third.I feel it's a touch less sharp than

the first two ...just

 

<P>The 100-300L is my first but seems to be consistant with the

results others are getting.Very impressive :-)

 

<P>The Tamron is also my first and seems to be a good one (it could

possibly be an ABOVE average example,though i can safely say that

such a thing is very rare)

 

<P>This particular example sigma is obviously a dud .Even though

it's a brand new one it's too soft at the long end *But very good at

shorter focal lengths i must stress*

<BR>I've seen real evidence that show this lens should be much

sharper ...and also example shots that show mine is only slightly

worse than normal.Obviously there are some serious quality variance

issues!

 

 

<P><P>A good tripod was used and remote release

<BR>**Focusing was done manually and MULTIPLE attempts made with

each lens then the best kept-these are definitely the best these

lenses are going to get!**

<BR>These are 100% center crops only-no edge tests just yet

<BR>All pics are wide open-i'll do some proper tests later at

various apertures

(But one thing i can say so far is that the L lens doesn't sharpen

up much when stopped down while the others do ...they still can't

beat the L wide open though)

I didn't want the AWB varying the results and didn't think to do a

CWB so these are taken with daylight colour ballance ...so are all

much warmer looking than they should be-sorry! I'll redo the test

later

<BR>All files are 100% crops with light usnsharp mask applied (only

because my camera is set abit soft) but no other editing at all

<BR>Jpeg compression was modest to preserve sharpness so the files

are about 160Kb

 

 

<P>

 

<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=456157

">You can find the test shots here</A>

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

I still can't do much testing because the variable overcast is playing havoc with the contrast( and therefore apparent sharpness) of the images .

<P>I did manage to get some idea of short end performance and it's a whole lot closer than the tele end.In fact the L lens doesn't stand out at all ,being no sharper than a couple of the cheaper zooms.

<BR>It might take a while to complete the test due to circumstances and weather (I did do some indoor testing with objects and text,etc but it simply didn't show results that tallied up with each lens -real world,in the field performance- so i dropped the whole idea)

<BR>If anyone wants advice on which to buy i can safely comment on several things:

<p>If you need real sharpness at the long end then the 100-300/5.6 L is the right choice(Of course one might decide to spend abit more still and go for the 70-200/4L with 1.4 TC .It depends on how much one can spend)

(P)If you need fast focus for sports then the 100-300usm easily wins.A very nice lens

<P>If you want sharpness on a budget then the tamron is very good.Just be aware that it has harsh bokeh and gives some strong purple fringing (if those things worry you at all)

<P>If you like the sigma then buy it from somewhere that will happily exchange it in case you get a bad example.It IS a very nice overall lens that is let down only by variable quality control.(there are some images in the above linked folder from this lens)

<P>The canon 75-300 does have some good qualities-inexpensive,good enough sharpness up to about 200mm ,realistic contrast and colour(or hopeless contrast and colour-depending on your point of view :-) ) and easily available 2nd hand.