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Will the 70-200 4.0 L IS be enough to be the portrait favorite?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
My 70-200 4.0 fits into a pocket, is light and yet impressive looking and gives the quality of the 70-200 2.8 L IS which I use for photography of actors on my sets and portraits.

On a tripod, the weight of the 2.8L IS makes no difference to me.

Hand held, the larger lens gets to be heavy after several hours but I like the IS.

So for this work, now, how many portrait photographers would choose the much lighter 70-200 4.0L IS?

Asher
 

SeanMcCormack

pro member
I don't know Asher. I have the 2.8L non IS and the 4.0L. I kept the 4 for portraits as it is so sharp and light. However one day I had the 2.8 with me instead. I actually found it much sharper and the weight was no issue for the entire session. What this means to me is that I might sell the f4 and use the money towards a 24-70 2.8L, where I currently have only slower lenses (28-135 IS and Sigma 18-200).
 

Jan Luursema

New member
For me probably yes! When shooting interview portraits I usually use the available light with flash. Usually I need a longer (say 1/60) shutterspeed for this. This works great with the 24-105. I also used the old 70-200/4 for this, but I needed a shutterspeed towards 1/200 to get a completely sharp image. So I sold the 70-200 again. I'm seriously considering trading the 24-105 against the 70-200/4 IS when it hits the stores. I prefer using a longer focal lenght for interview portraits, makes it easier to get a clean background.
f4 is also good to get reasonable DOF. f2.8 would probably do, but I agree the 2.8 is too heavy to handhold for a longer time.

But for more posed portraits I prefer using primes like the 85/1.8.
 
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