Which 70-200 telezoom for sports photography?

[pdk42]

It's interesting how we can reach different conclusions on lenses. I have found the resolving power of the 70-300 to be quite good, and Richard found the same in his review. But Charles and Paul reached a different conclusion.

I recently had a short foray back into m43 (part of planning my Japan trip) and while I had the camera (an EM1.3) I tested a copy of the Olympus/OM 100-400 (which clearly is based on the Sigma 100-400 for FF). In general I was very unhappy with the lens's performance, but what was very clear to me was that it delivered reasonable results at shorter distances but was pretty awful towards infinity. I found exactly the same with the Panasonic 70-300. In both cases I was doing my tests in cold winter conditions (shooting winter trees on the horizon) so I don't think atmospheric issues were at play.

Interestingly though, I found significant focus wander on both lenses (OM 100-400 and Panasonic 70-300) when shooting near infinity. I wonder if that's what different people are reporting. Those who shoot these lenses at short-medium distances, perhaps using burst modes (where focus wander is disguised in the glut of frames), find that they perform OK. Whereas people like me who generally shoot things far away on single shot mode find that they get a lot of virtually useless images.

 

[GeorgeHudetz]

Yes, could be. I generally don't focus at infinity very often, so that certainly could explain my findings.

 

[dirk]

In general I was very unhappy with the lens's performance, but what was very clear to me was that it delivered reasonable results at shorter distances but was pretty awful towards infinity.

mmmhhh... I have not had that experience so far with mine.

But I got another idea: If I keep my Lumix S1RII and use its 44MP resolution to cropzoom or hybrid zoom with a 70-200 telezoom, I would get the same focal range like my Sigma 100-400 up to 400mm and still have 20MP (same resolution maximum like with MFT). But with DOF of F2.8 at fullframe. That could kill my telezoom use cases for MFT, if it works well (ignoring the the heavy weight of the 70-200/2.8) and might make the Sigma 100-400 obsolete.

 

[Quentinquirelino]

mmmhhh... I have not had that experience so far with mine.

But I got another idea: If I keep my Lumix S1RII and use its 44MP resolution to cropzoom or hybrid zoom with a 70-200 telezoom, I would get the same focal range like my Sigma 100-400 up to 400mm and still have 20MP (same resolution maximum like with MFT). But with DOF of F2.8 at fullframe. That could kill my telezoom use cases for MFT, if it works well (ignoring the the heavy weight of the 70-200/2.8) and might make the Sigma 100-400 obsolete.

I think you have a miss calculation. If you crop from 200mm to 400mm you have a two time crop. Wit two times crop, your resolution halves in width of the frame and it also halves in heights of the frame. In conclusion your resolution quarter. That means with 44 Mpix at 200mm you end up with 11 Mpix at 400mm crop from 200mm.

 

[dirk]

ohhhh... I obviously had a 5 minute "wishful thinking" period....

 

[CharlesH]

I think you have a miss calculation. If you crop from 200mm to 400mm you have a two time crop. Wit two times crop, your resolution halves in width of the frame and it also halves in heights of the frame. In conclusion your resolution quarter. That means with 44 Mpix at 200mm you end up with 11 Mpix at 400mm crop from 200mm.

Yes, this is how I use my S1RM2. I've mentioned this on the forum a few times already.

Also, if you select both RAW and Fine then you can use either HyZ or CrZ, and if you only import the RAW into Lightroom the RAW will come in as zoomed. This may not be obvious or intuitive but it is quite powerful. If you now use the Lightroom Crop Overlay tool the entire 44MP image will show, with the crop highlighted. The crop can now be moved around to reframe the shot, or the crop can be adjusted smaller or larger (all the way up to 44MP if you want). In other words HyZ sets a crop for taking the picture, but this is also a starting crop that can be further adjusted in Lightroom. This is my normal workflow with the S1RM2. And by the way, with a 2X zoom you still need to shrink photos to show them on this forum.