The 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is perhaps THE must have lens for many professional photographers.

Although not quite as sharp and aberration free, and MUCH bigger and heavier than a high quality prime lens such as a 135mm f/2.0 or 200mm f/2.8, its wide aperture and zoom combined with image stabilisation allow the pro photographer much more versatility and freedom to capture the shot they want.

Personally, for my type of usage, I am not keen on carrying around a 1.5-1.8kg lens plus another 1-1.4kg body all day, and I would rather use a 135mm f/2.0 L lens perhaps mated with a 1.4x teleconverter if I need the extra reach.

Another major problem with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens size is that it forces you to limit your camera bag choice to the traditional camera bag which means you need to take it off your back, set it down and then access your gear – not my style at all.

And, of course, on my Olympus dSLR, I have the beautiful Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens which gives me more telephoto reach and macro performance than the available 70-200mm lenses for Canon, Nikon or Sony.

The legacy 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses from the film days, as excellent as they were then, have now been found wanting when mated with the new high resolution full frame digital SLRs, and thus the manufacturers have released new versions of these over the past couple of years.

The main reason for having a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is to use it at its widest aperture to give you nice background blurring and bokeh while still giving a sharp subject which will hopefully pop out at the viewer.

Thus in the table below, I will only be using dpreview’s data at f/2.8:

	Canon f/2.8L IS version I	Canon f/2.8L IS II version II	Nikon AF-S VR f/2.8G ED-IF version I	Nikon AF-S f/2.8G ED VRII – version II	Sony f/2.8G
focal length in 35mm terms	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm
weight (kg)	1.57kg	1.49kg	1.47kg	1.54kg	1.5kg
length (cm)	19.7cm	19.9cm	21.5cm	20.9cm	19.7cm
closest focus (m)	1.4m (0.18x macro) pincushion	1.2m (0.21x macro)	1.4m (0.18x macro) BUT corners are soft!	1.4m (0.12x macro)	1.2m (0.23x macro)
70mm MTF	1350 (centre) => 800 => 1200 (edge)		1650 => 850	2100 => 850	2000 centre => 800 edge
70mm CA at edge	0.07%		0.13%	0.06%	0.05%
100mm MTF	1600 => 1200 => 1300		1600 => 750	1650 => 750	1800 centre => 1125 edge
100mm CA at edge	0.05%		0.07%	0.02%	0.04%
135mm MTF	1450 => 1125 => 1150		1600 => 650	1700 => 1800 => 800	1800 centre => 1100 edge
135mm CA at edge	0.03%		0.05%	0.03%	0.04%
200mm MTF	1100 => 800 => 1130		1125 =>1300=>480	1650 => 1850 => 1300	1200 centre => 1150 edge
200mm CA at edge	0.045%		0.04% (0.05% half-way)	0.065%	0.065%
light falloff	2EV		2-2.7EV worst at 200mm	1.3EV	1.3-2EV worst at 100mm
distortion	1.2% barrel 70mm => -1.0% pincushion at 200mm		1.2% barrel 70mm => -1.8% pincushion at 200mm	~0% barrel 70mm => -1.5% pincushion at 200mm	1.4% barrel 70mm => -1.3% pincushion at 200mm
diaphragm blades	8	8	9 rounded	9 rounded	9 rounded
other features	“3EV OIS” white	1 flourite and 5 UD elements; “4EV OIS” white MF ring wider and easier to us than previous	not good for full frame, but great on DX cameras for which it presumably was designed for in 2002. “3EV OIS”; 3 AF stop buttons.	much better for full frame, new nano coating for less flare as well but subject to veiling flare. double-image gives poor bokeh at close focus distances. substantially changes angle of view which gets wider as you focus closer! Thus at closest focus of 1.4m, the focal length is actually 160mm not 200mm! “4EV OIS VRII”	3 focus hold buttons, IS in body
max. telephoto reach in 35mm terms at 200mm focal nength with 2x TC	400mm reach at f/5.6 520mm on Canon 1D 640mm on APS-C	400mm reach at f/5.6 520mm on Canon 1D 640mm on APS-C	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX
filter thread	77mm	77mm	77mm	77mm	77mm
price	$US1700		$US1700	$US2330	$US1800

For further comparison, the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens, is also weather-proofed, has a tripod mount, has 3-4EV IS via in-body IS on most Olympus dSLRs, is MUCH cheaper (~$US1000), is MUCH lighter (1kg not 1.5kg), is shorter (a manageable 15.7cm instead of 20-22cm), uses a smaller, cheaper filter (67mm not 77mm), has 9 rounded diaphragm blades for nice bokeh, and has more than twice the macro performance and twice the telephoto reach (can even use it hand held at reach of 800mm f/7 with a 2x teleconverter), making it MY preferred zoom lens.

Although dpreview has not tested the ZD 50-200mm, it has been tested with a different system at lenstip and wide open it was much better than the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 on a Canon 20D – with their MTF50 readings giving 41-44 for the ZD in the centre vs only 31-39 for the Canon in the centre, and the ZD was 32-37 at the edge, while the Canon was a much worse 26-29. Their tests for CA showed worst result was 0.11% at 120mm for the ZD and 0.055% at 200mm, while it was 0.085% at 200mm for the Canon. Both lenses showed some astigmatism. The ZD had the least light fall off across the image and had MUCH less flare and ghosting shooting into the sun. Their tests of the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II gave similar resolution wide open to the Canon. I was not able to find their tests of the Nikon 70-200mm vI lens although it apparently was the best of these tested when used on a D200 DX sensor.

Some examples of my photos taken with the ZD 50-200mm lens are here and with a 2x TC are here.

Of course, Olympus users also have the option of the superb but expensive and heavy Olympus ZD 35-100mm f/2.0 lens which, in 35mm full frame terms, gives the focal length reach of a 70-200mm lens but light gathering of an f/2.0 lens and depth of field of an f/4 lens- which at maximum telephoto is perfect for most situations.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that high quality prime lenses are even better than the zoom lenses for optical image quality – for example, the new Canon 100mm f/2.8L USM hybrid IS macro is even sharper than the previous sharpest lens tested on dpreview (the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro), and wide open at f/2.8 it gives MTF 50 of 2000 in the centre and 1500 at the edge with a CA < 0.03%, 1.7EV light falloff and only trivial pincushion – easily beating any of the 70-200mm zooms.

Here is a delightful, quick candid portrait I snuck in while this young lady was having her face painted at a cricket match – taken with the Canon 1D Mark III with EF 135mm f/2.0 L lens and 1.4x TC for very shallow DOF – actually, too shallow for portraits, but didn’t have time to close the aperture down a notch or two (my ZD 50-200mm was attached to 2x TC and my Gh-1 on a tripod in the stadium taking shots of the cricket game):