The Wild Photographer

My Thoughts on the 70-200mm Class of Lenses

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If you know you know...these are highly revered and often photographers' go-to lenses.  But how do they stack up for wildlife, landscape, travel, and general nature photography?

Well, I just returned from a Borneo Photo Expedition and found that I had this on my camera about 80% of the time.  Yep, they're that good.

In this episode I go over all the reasons why these are exceptional lenses for nature photography, but also acknowledge some of their downsides.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, use these links below if you plan on renting or purchasing a lens!  (by the way, you get 15% off at LensRentals.com by using the promo code WildPhotographer15).

My Full Camera Kit:
Canon R5 Body
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8
Canon RF 24-105mm f/4
Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1
Canon RF 70-200 f/2.8
Canon EF Macro 100mm f/2.8
Canon RF 50mm f/1.8
Peak Design Carbon Fiber Tripod

Court:

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Wild Photographer. I am delighted to bring you an episode on gear and a piece of gear that I am well spoiler alert very passionate about. I recently picked up a new version of the 70-200 class of lens for my Canon mirrorless system and have fallen in love all over again. So this episode I actually designed and really thought of prior to getting this lens, just as a way to tell you all a little bit about the pros and the cons and the who's and the why's and the what's about the 7200 class of lens for landscapes, wildlife, travel, people, how do I use it, comparison to other similar lenses and why you might consider getting one for yourself yourself and possibly how. So let me dive into it and start off the episode with kind of my whys for why I think they're so great. Well, the number one thing, honestly, is going to be the quality. It's just an incredibly sharp class of lenses and this goes I'm not just talking about the Canon lens, it's whether you get this in the Sigma version, whether you get the Nikkor, nikon, brand, sony, olympus, like you know, anything out there.

Court:

This class of lenses is really really tip top quality. It rivals prime lenses in terms of the sharpness and the correct color and the saturation, the contrast. So, first and foremost, it's just insanely high quality. Now you mix that with the versatility of a zoom range, meaning you're not just fixed at 200 millimeters or fixed at 100 millimeters. This 70 to 200 range is superb for all around photography. Now, you might think it's actually a pretty narrow range and it is in comparison to a lot of modern day lenses like your 100 to 500s and your, your 18 to 200s. Yeah, it's, it's more narrow, but what you lack there you really really pick up in terms of just tip top quality and sharpness. The other big thing is it forces me to see things differently. When I use this lens, I'm not given the versatility of a 500 millimeter. I don't have the super wide angle of a 24 millimeter. This is really kind of middle of the road, but once you start getting used to it, you find that 70 can be very wide and 200 can be very tight. In fact, 200 millimeters is pretty darn good for wildlife Now, if you're out there photographing small birds or really distant wildlife all day, every day.

Court:

Yeah, this shouldn't be the only lens in your kit, but I have to say I just got back from a deep dive into a Borneo photo expedition, getting way out there, seeing all sorts of wildlife, big and small, and I am looking back at my photos and find I took 80% of my shots with the 70 to 200. I rarely took it off my camera because I loved it that much. Another huge benefit is yeah, it's 2.8. I cannot overstate how valuable 2.8 is for not just low light, but also just being fast and also that beautiful background and foreground blur 2.8,. Once again, now that I'm reinvigorated by using this lens and reintroduced to the world of 2.8 telephotos, I'm hooked. I'm addicted. I love this look. In fact, I don't think I took it off of 2.8 for basically the entire time. I think I shot a couple shots of a frog at F4, but I shot 2.8, meaning that my photos were sharp enough at 2.8 to not have to leave that setting and it gave me this incredible low light sensitivity and speed with that lens, so it was just sublime. Another thing in this laundry list of reasons why I think they're so great is it's pretty light for a telephoto. So we're thinking telephoto at 2.8.

Court:

If you Google that with like 300, 400, 500 millimeters, I mean they're bazookas. They're huge, huge lenses Like the 400 2.8 is like the size of a suitcase. I mean it's a really, really big lens. So yeah, 200 millimeters is not a super telephoto, it's a moderate medium telephoto length. But to have something in a small package at f 2.8, it's relatively light and compact and you know, because of that high quality you can crop into your shot. So it's incredibly versatile for traveling and travel photography, wildlife, landscapes, etc. Etc, etc. So they're about as big as you can go with a telephoto at 2.8 before you get into really insane size, weight and price. Again, your 7200s 2.8s. They're in around $2,000 to $3,000 US right now, which I get it. That's not cheap. However, you'll notice as soon as you get into the 300s you're close to 10,000, like four, three to four times the price. 400 is even more, the 600 F4 is even more. So it's, you know, just a lot of reasonableness. I don't know if that's a word, but let's just use it. It's a very reasonable lens, size, weight, price for the insane quality and having some decent telephoto at 2.8.

Court:

Okay, let's dive into why I like it for landscapes. Well, first and foremost, it really does very well with what we call zoom compression. It's this idea that when you zoom in, when you use telephoto, everything in your sensor, everything in your frame, your entire scene is magnified. So if you have this ability to have a person or some sort of landscape element relatively distant you know, let's just say, for using an example, 40 to a hundred yards away and you zoom in on that person, you zoom in on that flower, you zoom in on that tree, whatever it might be the background tends to magnify at the same rate as the subject. Don't worry about picturing this in your mind, just digest this.

Court:

Key part of that equation is that the background becomes bigger. So what this allows you to do is, if you have a background that's a really beautiful sweeping color of blue or green or a lovely red, textured background, you can put your subject in front of it. You can use that telephoto and it does this zoom compression so that background actually gets bigger. You can look up some really great examples online these days, where people will do videos or just side by side photos of what the background looks like at 24 millimeters, 50, 70, 100, 135, 200, which we're talking about here 300 and 400. And it's really amazing as the subject subject stays the same size, because you go further and further back for using that telephoto length, the background just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So this is all to say that using 200 millimeters at F 2.8 gives you this really incredible portraiture look, whether it's wildlife, people, even landscape elements. It gives us really really great look where the background, the colors, the textures, the size of the background is is bigger, it's more of the frame, and so you can really create some artsy look with it, and I love, love, love it.

Court:

Again. You know, one of the first things I said about why I generally think this lens is so great is it forces you to see things differently. It's so seemingly obvious when you get in front of a big landscape, like, okay, great, I'm going to have my, my all purpose landscape lens. And what is your all purpose landscape lens? Probably an 18 to 55, probably a 24 to 70, 24, 105. That's obvious and that's kind of what we reach for first. However, when you're quote unquote stuck with the 70 to 200, when you're forced yourself to use the 70 to 200, you start taking landscapes in a different way. And I have to say, getting back from this Borneo photo expedition, I'm loving my landscape shots, I'm loving the edge to edge composition of trees and forests and pathways and really forcing myself to see differently. Again, I'm forcing myself only in the colloquial way. I'm forcing myself because the quality is so insanely good of this lens that I want to use it as often as possible. So even in front of scenes where I might be tempted to put on a different lens, I use this one because the quality is tip top notch and it's getting me different photos, different looks, things that other people aren't seeing and aren't taking photos of. In the same way, it's helping me differentiate my photography, which is a really, really key thing in today's day and age For wildlife.

Court:

200 millimeters is actually a pretty decent bit of telephoto power. You may know if you have like a 24 to 100, or if you have a much more versatile lens like a 100 to 500,. The 100 to 300 range is a lot of telephoto, a lot of zoom. When you start going from three to 400 and 400 to 500 and 500 to 600 and so on, that additional hundred millimeters of focal length doesn't really do as much as those initial hundred millimeters. So in other words, what I'm getting at is 200 millimeters ain't no slouch. 200 millimeters is actually pretty good for wildlife and it's especially good when you're taking photos of big wildlife, something that I really really enjoy. So we're talking about bears, orangutans, other apes like gorillas, safari wildlife, even big birds or smaller monkeys, things that are, you know, I don't know, I'd say, like human sized or child sized, like IE, not little brown birds.

Court:

200 millimeters is actually pretty darn good, especially if you're on super high quality wildlife photo expeditions where you're getting reasonably close to this wildlife. Sure, you want 400?, absolutely 500?. Yeah, there's never enough zoom, there's never enough telephoto power out there. We always want more. But what I'm saying is for this package of high quality F2.8 and zoom versatility from 70 to 200, 200 is actually pretty darn good for telephoto power for wildlife and again, it's such high quality that you can crop your shot Like I'm doing a hundred percent crops and really happy with the outcome. Now, if I'm trying to print this off 24 by 36 or you know other big format kind of things I might have to uh, you know scratch my head and pull back a little bit. But when I'm doing thumbnails on websites or photos for brochures and catalogs and magazines and and that sort of stuff, I'm cropping it 100% and it's looking great. This is really really good.

Court:

The other part for wildlife is F2.8 is just magic. So remember there's a couple benefits to F2.8. One is that you get that amazing bokeh. The quality of that background or foreground blur, ie whatever's not in focus gets a nice blur. So F2.8 is awesome for wildlife portraits and in places that are dim or dark or where you're doing a lot of morning or evening photography, like Borneo, like Africa, like Alaska, gosh, like pretty much any wildlife in the world.

Court:

Having that 2.8 allows you to shoot at lower ISO or shoot faster than you otherwise could, versus like a F 5.6 or, you know, god forbid, a 7.1. I say God forbid jokingly, because my a hundred to 500 is F 7.1, but guess how often I use that on this Borneo trip, not that often because I was addicted to 2.8. It was phenomenal. So, yeah, fast photography, low light photography, really really good. The thing is is like I may not get every shot. There were some orangutans in this recent trip. They were kind of far away, um, there were some birds in flight that, yeah, if I would have had like 400, 500 millimeters, it would have been a better photo, um, but the flip side is that those shots where the 70-200 did work out well and I, you know, would want that as my tip top choice lens on and I had it on those photos are going down in history as some of my best ever of Borneo, and that's again replicatable across the board with Alaska and other places.

Court:

So let's move on from wildlife to travel and people photography, something that I personally love a lot. One of the great things is, with the 7200, you don't have to get in people's faces to take their photos. I love my 50 millimeter. A lot of people love their 35 millimeters. However, in travel, especially when you're with groups or individuals or you're doing street photography and you don't really want people to know you're taking their photos, so you can make it candid, so you can be a little bit covert about it.

Court:

Having that 7200 millimeter range is great to not have to get in people's faces, people that don't know you or don't know you very well. These just might feel uncomfortable. Like what are you doing with this photo? Why are you in my face? How close are you? Are you taking photos of the pores on my nose or my nose hair, like what's going on here, whereas you know 200 millimeters, standing 10, 20, 30 feet back, you can get really really great travel photography of people. So again, candid shots, not having to get in people's face. You can take shots without people realizing you're taking photos of them, and that just makes the whole scenario of travel photography more legit, more copacetic.

Court:

And then again, 200 millimeters at F 2.8, I've said this like 11 times now, but you can get a fantastic bokeh, really really soft background blur. I've done some lens tests of what like a 50 millimeter 1.2 or an 85 millimeter 1.2 looks like compared to a 200 millimeter 2.8. And because the depth of field actually gets shallower and shallower as you add on more and more telephoto, a 200 2.8 is really in contention with like a 85 1.2 or certainly an 85 1.8 or F2. So, in other words, you can use this as a portrait lens. You can take portrait photos of people, whether you're doing some freelance gigs in the side and photographing people for yearbooks, or or you know, senior portraits or wedding photography. It's versatile for that too.

Court:

And then, like I said, uh, with that zoom compression for landscapes, you could also use that for travel and people very, very well. I love finding really cool palm trees or really cool textured plants or even rock walls in basically isolating the colors and textures. So I don't get the sky, so I don't get the ground. I just want that swath of purple or I want that swath of green with a beautiful broad leaves, and I want that behind my subject. With the 200 millimeter you can bring that closer to you just as you would the person. So you stand back a little bit further, zoom in, fill the frame with the person and that beautiful background.

Court:

So how do I use it? Gosh, this is the quickest section F2.8 and go. I don't think I took it off of F2.8 this entire Borneo trip. Like I said, I think a few shots of a horned frog at F4, that was really nice, but F2.8 is really really nice. And again, this new generation of mirrorless lenses gosh, so, so sharp, so honestly, the brilliance of this lens is F 2.8. I just set it on F 2.8 and I go now with a lot of 7,200, there are alternate versions at the F four level. They are lighter, they're smaller and they're less expensive.

Court:

Should you get it? You know this is a really subjective personal choice. It has to do with your budget, it has to do with your style of photography. I happen to love really shallow depth of field photography and I'll advocate that you should also love it too. It's a great professional look.

Court:

But honestly, the 7200 class of lens is still so good that, because of size or weight or space or budget, if you need to go for the F4, I know pros that just for whatever reason, don't need the F4. They're not shooting in low light or they're using a flash or they just don't really like that ultra shallow depth of field. Let's say they got burned on at one time. They shot too many photos at F2.8, put on the computer afterwards and realized it wasn't deep enough of a depth of field and now they only shoot at four. Yeah, the 7200 F4 is a great, great option.

Court:

However, I will say that the F 2.8 is a going to be higher quality. Well, you know, the actual optics are probably very similar, but F 2.8 is going to be probably a little bit better quality for your range of photography, having that ability to shoot in lower light and faster shutter speeds, and it's probably also going to retain its value a little bit more. So if you do need to sell it in a few years, you'll probably retain value better versus the F4 version. So how do you get one? Well, of course, you can go out and buy one. But a big thanks, as always, to a sponsor of our podcast here, which is lensrentalscom.

Court:

And if you want to try out this lens, again, I'm a huge advocate. The reason I partner with lens rentals is because I'm just a very, very big proponent of trying before you buy. I think it's a huge thing, especially with bigger investments. So, yeah, go on lensrentalscom, use the promo code wild photographer 15, try out a 7200 on your camera for the weekend, for a week, rent it for your next trip and I I really gosh I shouldn't say promise, but I really don't think you're gonna be disappointed. I think if you haven't tried this class of lens and you like everything that I'm talking about today, you're going to put on your camera, you're going to go out there, you're going to take photographs and you're going to be wowed, just like I have been.

Court:

I'm so glad I got back into the world of 7200 millimeter photography. This thing is staying on my camera. I might even buy a second body just so I don't have to take this off my primary body. It's that good. So my thoughts on the 7200 class of lenses they're amazing. Go try it out. I think you're going to love it. Folks, thank you so much for joining today. If you want to know how you can support the podcast, the best thing you can do is leave a review, leave a comment, say some nice words. It helps more than you will ever know, but really, just thanks for listening, thanks for sharing the word. If you want to send a link to this podcast to someone that you think might enjoy it, please do so, and you can leave us up to a five-star review on Spotify, itunes and wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much and looking forward to next time.