Some Shots With My New Lens

[MartijnGizmo]

As I said some time ago, I wanted to get a Canon EF 70-200 F/4 L. Well, so I did. :lol:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/P000.jpg

I've been very busy and the weather sucks at the moment, but here are two shots made with it:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/IMG_5250-border.jpg

I also improved my flash-skills resulting in this:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/IMG_5323-border.jpg

It's really really sharp, I love the colors and the build-quality is awesome. I think I'm an L-coholic now though, and I plan on ordering a Canon EF 17-40 F/4 L next week. 8)

[Zot09]

omg...congratulations on your purchase! I really like your first picture with the long line of people and the two people sticking out in the front. I've been dying to buy a L-series lense for my 20D for a while now.

[Darkel]

Congrats, those first shots really look promising :good:

[TT]

Very very nice shots, but please, post some infos about the settings used on both pics ;)
I'd like also to know how much you paid (if you want), where you got it, and a short review compared to your other lenses.

Thanks :)

[nthfinity]

I think i want that lense for my canon :shock:

what lense did you use for your second picture?

[sikx5]

Very nice work! I like the first shot the best, the christmas shopping is very colourful.

That is one nice lense there dude, Looking forward to a review when you get some time, also more pics. :mrgreen:

[MartijnGizmo]

I think i want that lense for my canon :shock:

what lense did you use for your second picture?

The same one.....

Very very nice shots, but please, post some infos about the settings used on both pics ;)

The pictures contain full EXIF. :) But here we go:

Picture 1:
829a ExposureTime 1/100
8827 ISOSpeedRatings 400
9202 ApertureValue 4.0
920a FocalLength 70.0
And quite some processing in Photoshop. Shot in RAW (I always do), added vignetting, gradual levels layer, curves, hue/saturation.

Picture 2:
829a ExposureTime 1/100
9202 ApertureValue 4.0
8827 ISOSpeedRatings 400
920a FocalLength 70.0
And I used a Speedlite 420EX, aimed direct and without the omnibounce, FEL set at -2 as a fillflash.

I'd like also to know how much you paid (if you want), where you got it, and a short review compared to your other lenses.

Thanks :)

I paid €659 at Crown, some guy in the Netherlands only known on internetforums. He exports a lot of stuff to Russia etc, and has no webshop or so. I'm waiting for my €100 cashback from Canon. :)


I already sold my Sigma 70-300 APO DG, so I can't do a direct comparison, but I know it well enough to compare. First thing I noticed, it's fast! The focus-speed has to be experienced to be believed, a whole different level compared to consumer-lenses. Colors are nice and warm, but not over-saturated or Sigma-yellow, etc. And it's sharp! I couldn't see a difference at F/4 or F/8 when I tested it.

I received my custom bank-card and wanted to post a picture of it. The 70-200 was on the camera on my desk, so I used that. I wondered why my card looked a bit smudgy, until realizing I was looking at 200% in Photoshop! :D After examing the card a bit more and closer, I could indeed see the texture. So yes, it is really sharp! Here's the pic I'm talking about:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/IMG_5302.jpg

The lens is quite heavy, heavier than what I used to carry around, but that doesn't botter me at all. Hey, I'm a healthy 23-year-old. :P It also looks quite supicious when using outside (like in the Christmas-shopping-pic), but that doesn't bother me at all. As long as the pics look good.


My payment on the 17-40 F/4 L just got confirmed, so I hope to receive it tomorrow. If it's just as sharp/fast (should be even faster), I'm gonna be a happy camper. :D


Oh, and on another positive note: my Cokin set that was in backorder for over a month just arrived. I've got the filterholder, 67 & 77mm adapter-rings, a graduated ND8 hard edge (P121) and a ND8 (P154):
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/IMG_5460.jpg


Oh, and to top it off I ordered this (from eBay/HongKong) tuseday:
- Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2 23.00GBP
- HOYA 77 mm HMC Multi-Coated UV Filter 9.99 GBP
- Canon Genuine Lens Dust Cap E (rear lens cap) 0.99 GBP


All that should keep me busy for a while. 8)

[TT]

Oh, I always forget to check out if there are EXIF or not on the pics.. most times when they are eidted there is no more full exif afaik.

Thanks for the infos. I have one last request. If you still have the RAW pics, is it possible to post a bigger format for the first one? 1200x1600ish if possible, with the same level of editing you did for the small one. Or maybe even an unedited version, just to check out grain, which seems kinda invisible so far! At ISO 400 I already have too much for my tastes (car pics).

And since we are talking about RAW, dang I always told me I need to try one day, but too lazy to install the needed thing so that PS can deal with them :bah: I just want to see if it really makes any difference. Is it difficult to learn to proprely edit a RAW pic?
I still don't think I will use it anyway since they really use too much space and especially at meetings I would need way more mem card than I actually have now :D

[MartijnGizmo]

Oh, I always forget to check out if there are EXIF or not on the pics.. most times when they are eidted there is no more full exif afaik.

Thanks for the infos. I have one last request. If you still have the RAW pics, is it possible to post a bigger format for the first one? 1200x1600ish if possible, with the same level of editing you did for the small one. Or maybe even an unedited version, just to check out grain, which seems kinda invisible so far! At ISO 400 I already have too much for my tastes (car pics).

I always keep the originals. :)

And since we are talking about RAW, dang I always told me I need to try one day, but too lazy to install the needed thing so that PS can deal with them :bah: I just want to see if it really makes any difference. Is it difficult to learn to proprely edit a RAW pic?
I still don't think I will use it anyway since they really use too much space and especially at meetings I would need way more mem card than I actually have now :D

I always shoot in RAW, it especially gives more freedom at small exposure-corrections and the white balance.

[MartijnGizmo]

Here you go:

http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/1041/img525016000yj.th.jpg (http://img487.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img525016000yj.jpg)

Wow, it got f*cked up real good by JPEG-compression. :shock: I can't get it any better at a decent filesize

[TT]

Thank you! Still no grain. I guess you are more modern than me and use PS CS which should have a grain reduction feature.

Or you maybe know DxO (http://www.dxo.com/en/photo/optics_pro/cameras_lenses.php)?

But of course when the picture is bigger, quality "drops" even without compressing a lot, it's obvious that the smaller, the better it will look ;)

[MartijnGizmo]

Thank you! Still no grain. I guess you are more modern than me and use PS CS which should have a grain reduction feature.

I use Photoshop CS2 and only use NoiseNinja or NeatImage if the noise annoys me. And that hasn't happened lately. :)

[TT]

Now I've got a newbie question: is grain up to the camera only or the lense too? because my 350D with both the 18-55 and the 90-300 at ISO 400 is already enough to need a NeatImage job

[MartijnGizmo]

Now I've got a newbie question: is grain up to the camera only or the lense too? because my 350D with both the 18-55 and the 90-300 at ISO 400 is already enough to need a NeatImage job

I always thought it was up to the film (grain) or camera (noise), but your statement got me thinking..... I'll do some research. :)

In the meanwhile, the postman brought me this:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/DPZ/P002.jpg

8)

[mindgam3]

And since we are talking about RAW, dang I always told me I need to try one day, but too lazy to install the needed thing so that PS can deal with them :bah: I just want to see if it really makes any difference. Is it difficult to learn to proprely edit a RAW pic?


I find taking pictures in RAW makes a significant difference compared to plain jpeg. Even when converting a RAW to jpeg, the converted jpeg always looks beter than the jpeg shot straight from the camera.

You should have got some RAW decoding software with your 350D which lets you change many paramters and convert it to jpeg.

With regards to noise (grain is analog cameras btw ;)):

As you know, increasing the ISO of the camera will increase noise - this is all to do with the CMOS sensor and therefore what lens you put on it will not change this.

However noise can be created through imperfections in the lens, before it gets to the sensor.... therefore a better lens will give less noise... but not to the extent a better sensor will give less noise.

[TT]

Thanks for the explanations mindgam! Indeed of course there were plenty of stuff coming with the camera, but never really checked exactly what.. I will maybe, but I don't want to discover RAW is so much better :(

[nthfinity]

my experience with raw on my 20D is it does produce fewer artifacts... but the Canon proprietary raw format is quite annoying :( my sony was able to record in .tif format (well, it wasnt a true raw... it was a jpg converted into the .tif... which meant it was pointless) but recording in .CR2 format requires the proprietary software the camera came with... which is good; but not as useful as PS. PS doesn't recognize the image format.... so i had the files converted from .CR2>.tif

i was then able to do the proper image processing with no quality loss... the strange thing is, the .cr2's were 1/2 the recorded size of the .tif files.

mabey its just that my old version of PS doesnt support CR2's, and PS 8 does?

[Zot09]

*drool* nice 17-40L :shock:

[SDK2003]

Nice lenses and judging by your test photos you know how to use them :)

[TT]

Ok, today I tried to play around a bit with RAW (sorry for hyjacking the topic dude), and in the end I think it's not worth the hassle for what I need. My pics are anyway cropped, resized and saved at lower quality for web purpose, and any minor quality gain at the source is soon lost in the process :bah:

[MartijnGizmo]

Here are 2 pics taken with the 17-40 F/4 L today:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/GoT/IMG_5489-border.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~akoevoet/GoT/IMG_5498-border.jpg

my experience with raw on my 20D is it does produce fewer artifacts... but the Canon proprietary raw format is quite annoying :( my sony was able to record in .tif format (well, it wasnt a true raw... it was a jpg converted into the .tif... which meant it was pointless) but recording in .CR2 format requires the proprietary software the camera came with... which is good; but not as useful as PS. PS doesn't recognize the image format.... so i had the files converted from .CR2>.tif

i was then able to do the proper image processing with no quality loss... the strange thing is, the .cr2's were 1/2 the recorded size of the .tif files.

mabey its just that my old version of PS doesnt support CR2's, and PS 8 does?

I use Adobe's Raw Converter with Photoshop CS2 and really like it:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html