70-210 F4 or 100-200 F4.5

[jason_fitzmaurice]

I'm finally moving to a Minotla AF system, bidding both my Nikon Af

and my X700 stuff goodbye.

 

I'm trying to decide between these two lenses purchased used. I will

eventually replace either of these with a 2.8 lens, but in the short

term , I need one of these.

 

Now I'm not interested in the difference in coverage, I can always use

a 28-80 to get to a 70 or 80mm setting, or in the slight speed

difference. My only question is about optical quality. Is one of these

going to produce noticable better images. Particularly in the 135-200

area?

 

Any advice appreciated.

[sl attanapola]

I bought the 100-200mm over the 70-210mm - why??

The reasons are twofold:

 

1.)The 70-210mm is twice the length of the 100-200mm

 

2.)The autofocus on the 100-200mm IMHO is faster

 

However the 100-200mm is affected by the following limitations:

 

1.)It has a rotating front element which means using polarisers can be tricky

 

2.)The close focusing distance is only 1.9m.

 

Both lenses are supposedly very good.I can only vouch for the 100-200mm personally but I can say it is a truly excellent lens.

 

The 70-210mm was the basis of the Leica 70-210mm made during the same period.Obviously it must have some modifications made by Leica but this indicates it too is a good lens!

 

This link has some interesting information on the 100-200mm lens:

 

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/reviews/minolta100200.htm

[sl attanapola]

This earlier thread may also be useful:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00DDNP

[mbroom]

hmm, I think 70-210 f4 is better.

 

yes, 100-200 is cheap and well made lense. but 6-feet minimum distance was big a problem to me, especially to get close-up focus.

 

70-210 f4 is rather long, heavy and expensive, but its quality is wonderful at all focal length. you may hardly discover at this close minimum distance among other telephoto zoom lenses. at minimum distance with wide open, you may get wonderful bokeh also.

[ivan_dzo]

They're not really comparable lenses. the 70-210 is stunningly sharp for a zoom at any length. But it's bit and heavy and slow af. The 100-200 is v sharp at 100 but not so good at 200. Acceptable but not in the same league. But its small, light and very cheap. the 100-200 is a great travel lens, the 70-210 is a great general purpose lens. Get both, they are very cheap and have different uses. (mine were both about 60usd on ebay).

[bill_tuthill]

The 70-210/4 is not that great at the long end. My 70-210/3.5-4.5

is better at 210mm. Here are the photodo.com MTF graphs for the

Leica 70-210/4, which is the same lens.

[douglas.hudson]

Could you please explain what you mean by "MTF", and what the axes on these graphs represent?

 

Cheers, Doug

[georg_kern]

There are some silly rumours around on the net that the 100-200 was designed as a kind of special observation lens for the police. In fact, the 100-200 was just a cheap, small lens for the people who could not afford the superior 70-210/4 or found the big zoom tho bulky.

 

 

If you want cheap and small, buy the 70-210/4,5-5,6. If you need better quality, buy the 70-210/4 (great at short focal length, e.g. for portraits) or the 70-210/3,5-4,5 (the best one for 210 mm, but not so great at medium focal lengths). The 100-200 is optically inferior to all these lenses, and therefore it is totally obsolete today, although it is sold in big numbers second-hand. But there is a reason why so many people sell them.

 

 

Regards

Georg

[jason_fitzmaurice]

Okay sounds like the 70-210 f4 it is.

If it is as good as people say I may even forgo the 2.8 for a while longer.

Thanks.

[sl attanapola]

I dunno why people are slating the 100-200mm lens.In the UK BOTH the 70-210mm and 100-200mm go for similiar prices(around 50 GBP).

 

I have seen many more 70-210mm/f4.0 lenses for sale than the 100-200mm.

 

Anyway I also managed to get a good condition 75-300mm Minolta AF lens for 21 quid today.

 

I wonder how good this lens is?

[bill_tuthill]

Douglas, MTF (modulation transfer frequency) is a measure of edge

sharpness. Photodo.com explains their graphs in a short article

<I>Understanding the MTF Graphs, Numbers and Grades</I> available

<A HREF=http://www.photodo.com/nav/artindex.html>from this webpage</A>.

<P>

SLA, photodo tested the 75-300 and it is OK up to 150mm(?), then poor.

If you want good MTF scores at 300mm, look at the 100-300 APO, which

is optimized for the long end.

[sl attanapola]

Bill Tuthill thanks for the info.I would like the 100-300mm APO but for 21 quid I suppose I can't really go wrong!

[douglas.hudson]

Bill, thanks for pointing me to this information. It's a great help for objectively comparing lens performance too.

 

Cheers, Doug

[ivan_dzo]

I hope I didn't contribute to saying the 100-200 is no good. It is! Very good indeed at 100 and pretty good at 200. because of its size and good optics, it's an indispensable travel lens. I wouldn't be without it. But if weight is no issue, then the 70-210 f4 is better. By the way, mtf tests are interesting and a rough guide, but when buying a lens that is 10+ years old, I prefer to make my decisions on testing my own lenses, so I know what I have got. In other words, the MTF figures are the best you can expect, if it's been well cared for, the reality is often worse.

[joseph_albert]

I believe photodo only tested lenses while focused at infinity, and the data may not extrapolate well to other focusing distances. Moreover, MTF doesn't address the tradeoff between sharpest possible wide-open performance and smooth bokeh.

<p>

because there are so many dimensions to lens performance (and so many ratings of lenses try to reduce it all to a single, 1-dimensional scale) you really have to try the lens for the types of photography you plan to do with it. Sometimes even the most superlative lens optically handles very poorly for a certain type of photography, and if you miss the shot because you were fighting against the equipment, it doesn't matter how good the lens is.

<p>

Most lenses made by premium optical companies are marvelous. I find how convenient a lens is to use for a type of work is a much bigger predictor of whether I'll get interesting images with it, not whether it is more marvelous than some other marvelous lens.