70-300 or 100-400mm?

Derwood

Hi Folks,

I'm about to buy a new zoom lens, either a Canon 70-300 or 100-400 L series.

I shoot aircraft so 400 works there, but I also want to grab portraits at the wider end. Is 100mm too long for portraits? 70mm better on a crop sensor?

Musetek

Derwood wrote: »

Hi Folks,

I'm about to buy a new zoom lens, either a Canon 70-300 or 100-400 L series.

I shoot aircraft so 400 works there, but I also want to grab portraits at the wider end. Is 100mm too long for portraits? 70mm better on a crop sensor?

I know plenty of people use lenses around that focal length for portrait purposes. It's maybe a tad on the longer side of that range, but perfectly fine - with one significant caveat.

Where are you going to shoot most of your portraits? If you'll be shooting full length portraits in tight spaces, then 100mm is possibly going to be too long. (Although if you have a 50mm fast lens and don't mind swapping in the middle of a session, this is no longer an issue.) If you have a good-sized room to work with, or are outdoors, or you're more interested in head shots, then you have no worries at all.

Of course, if you're going to be doing a lot of portrait work, you might want to think about saving up for a "portrait" lens. I shoot Nikon, so I can't speak to the Canon lenses (I'm sure someone else can chime in there) but there are a number of options. 50mm f1.4 or f1.8 is very popular; 85mm f1.8 also very popular; and if you're not a brand name snob, Tamron's 90mm f2.8 Macro is so well regarded it's known as the "portrait macro." I have it myself, it's tack sharp, great lens, and you have macro capability so it does double duty.

Hope that helps!

mercphoto

How about two primes instead? 400/5.6L for aircraft, and 50/1.4 or 85/1.8 for portraits.

ziggy53

Ultimately I don't think either of the Canon 70-300mm or Canon 100-400mm zoom lenses are going to be satisfying for portraiture, especially on a crop body. Yes, the Canon EF 100-400mm, f4.5-5.6 L IS USM is more appropriate for an airshow.


Portraits are really multiple different applications and I like to describe them in groupings:

Head shots and head-and-shoulders.
3/4 length and full length.
Environmental, group and natural settings.

For the first group, which is pretty tight to the head, on a crop 1.6x camera I prefer to use a longer focal length, generally 85mm or more. A 50mm lens will do just fine in smaller spaces for most poses.

For the second group I would generally use 50mm or so. A 35mm lens on a crop camera can do in a smaller room.

For groups and when you want to record a larger scene, I recommend a standard zoom of 17-55mm(ish). The Canon EF-S 17-55mm, f2.8 IS USM is about as good as it gets for this use. Image quality is very much "L" level and it's perfectly suited for professional applications. It's one of few of my lenses that I would quickly replace if anything happened to it.

Large aperture primes allow more control over DOF, which is important for flexibility and controlling background elements.

Derwood

Thanks for your replies folks.

As an amateur, I'm on a budget so to give myself the most versatility, I'm thinking of buying a 24-105L and the 70-300L. That will go along with my Canon Nifty Fifty and Tamron 17-50 f/2.8. Methinks I should be able to grabphoto's of the family and airplanes at air shows.

pathfinder

Derwood, there are good reasons for Ziggy's suggestions for large aperture primes for portraits.

Having said that, I own the 70-300 IS L and find it a very useful tool whether on a crop body or full frame. It is small, very sharp, and not too heavy.

It is not fast at the long end, but it does still remain sharp at the long end. The 70-200 f2.8 IS L is a better, all around lens for people, but the 70-300 IS L is quite useful also, but just not as fast wide open, especially at the long end. But on a crop body works quite nice for wildlife. I prefer slightly longer for air shows, but it will be sharp. I usually use a 100-400 ISL, or a Tamron 200-500 for air shows myself.

Derwood

pathfinder wrote: »

Derwood, there are good reasons for Ziggy's suggestions for large aperture primes for portraits.

Thanks Pathfinder! I have pondered both your and Ziggys' learned opinion, and I think I'll buy the 100-400 lens now and save some pennies for good primes for portraits.

Once again, thanks to you all for taking the time to reply.