Lloyd
Active member
Just to clarify, Corlan. While in Boston we did shoot the race (and primarily used the 400/2.8, 300/2.8 and 70-200 VRIIs on race day, as well as some smaller lenses, e.g. the 14-24), we also shot nearly two weeks of activities leading up to the race. This was done on behalf of the principal sponsor of the race. By far, the majority of our shooting was on days other than race day. Most of this was at dinners, programs, clinics, news conferences, and other events where primes could (and often were, the 85/1.4, 50/ 1.4 and the Zeiss 100 Makro, for example) easily used. It was simply a choice of utility. No doubt, in terms of absolute IQ, and particularly where bokeh is concerned, the 200/2 had/has the edge. But my experience, over the three plus years I owned one, was simply that I didn't use it enough to justify the expense, particularly when the zoom was so close in terms of quality. The new 70-200 VRII closed the gap even more, in my experience.This part (and Matt's a couple of posts below) is a little bit of a surprise for me. As good as some results from the 70-200 VRII are, from what i can see here and there along with the few RAW files i could handle myself, in my eyes the 200/2 has still an edge AFA pure IQ is concerned. Of course for action (race shots you've mentionned) use it clearly doesn't have the same versatility and it's understable that it'd stay in the bag.
I'll have to study this more before taking a final decision. Guess i'm partial though, not using zooms since a long time and developping a calmer shooting practice, no sports, no fps sweat (usually shooting a single shot, up to 3 max except products in studio)... and quite sensitive to the bokeh magic of the 200. Hmm. On the fence, once more