I picked up one of these used on Adorama a few weeks back. Primary uses for me, airshows, racing, the odd animal i stumble across in my travels and whatever random uses I can find a use for this beast.
And that is the main point, this thing is a beast. It is easily twice as long as the 70-200, and at 7 pounds and change, it dwarfs the 70-200. The build quality if the same as the 70-200, which is where it gets the majority of its heft.
I can hand hold it down to about 1/300 or so in testing, but things fall apart quickly in the 1/80th-1/200th range i usually use for racing. For the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix i put it on my monopod and left it there the entire time.
So first, 400mm, f4.5, Iso 800, 1/800th.
This is about 40ish yards.
And now 25ish yards.
200mm, f6.3, iso100, 1/800th Couldn't get far enough away and there were too many people to try to grab one at 400mm too.
400mm, f4.5, iso 100, 1/640th
F6.3, 200mm, 1/2500th, iso500
The autofocus motor is quick, but it is slower than my 70-200, and the keeper rate was quite a bit lower with the head on shots. The color reproduction was great. There was a little purple fringing on the bright work on some of the other head on shots. The fine detail nature of the chrome trim was enough that I didn't notice it until i was down at 1:1 and pixel peeping. Outside of that, the BMW static shot was about as sharp as I was expecting. The 5th shot was prefocused on a hay bale behind the car and i motor drove to hopefully get that shot.
Everything I have read about the lens was always positive, except for 400mm at long distances. Nothing was far enough away to really test that. The Nationwide series race (or whatever it's called now) at Mid Ohio in August has some spots that I can get enough distance to test this.
Overall I'm really happy with the lens. Now to finish sifting through the PVGP shots and see what else I can glean from them.
And that is the main point, this thing is a beast. It is easily twice as long as the 70-200, and at 7 pounds and change, it dwarfs the 70-200. The build quality if the same as the 70-200, which is where it gets the majority of its heft.
I can hand hold it down to about 1/300 or so in testing, but things fall apart quickly in the 1/80th-1/200th range i usually use for racing. For the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix i put it on my monopod and left it there the entire time.
So first, 400mm, f4.5, Iso 800, 1/800th.
This is about 40ish yards.
And now 25ish yards.
200mm, f6.3, iso100, 1/800th Couldn't get far enough away and there were too many people to try to grab one at 400mm too.
400mm, f4.5, iso 100, 1/640th
F6.3, 200mm, 1/2500th, iso500
The autofocus motor is quick, but it is slower than my 70-200, and the keeper rate was quite a bit lower with the head on shots. The color reproduction was great. There was a little purple fringing on the bright work on some of the other head on shots. The fine detail nature of the chrome trim was enough that I didn't notice it until i was down at 1:1 and pixel peeping. Outside of that, the BMW static shot was about as sharp as I was expecting. The 5th shot was prefocused on a hay bale behind the car and i motor drove to hopefully get that shot.
Everything I have read about the lens was always positive, except for 400mm at long distances. Nothing was far enough away to really test that. The Nationwide series race (or whatever it's called now) at Mid Ohio in August has some spots that I can get enough distance to test this.
Overall I'm really happy with the lens. Now to finish sifting through the PVGP shots and see what else I can glean from them.