The Phoblographer

Remember our Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX OS review for Canon mount? Well it’s available for a sweet deal: $1349 at B&H. We were very impressed with this lens at the price point and believe that for portrait photographers and those that shoot weddings will really want to give it a try or get their hands on it. Take a look through our complete review (linked previously) for more.

Would you want to shoot a wedding or engagement session with the Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 EX OS for Canon mount? I asked myself that same question recently. After getting our first impressions with the lens, we found sharpness problems with it. We shot ice skating and night scenes. We shot wildlife with it. And in two different tests, not many of you were able to tell the difference between this lens and a 20 year old Canon lens. So here’s the question: why not?

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What do you do on a Saturday night? Do you ever go out to shoot just for leisure? The chances that you do this during vacation are very great. If you are considering renting or buying the Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 EX OS for Canon, a couple of tests doing touristy-things were conducted using this lens and the Canon 5D Mk II + 7D. Video, landscapes, and even ice skating were shot. If you want to catch up on the rest of our postings then take a look at our impressions, our sharpness test, and shooting squirrels.

Editor’s Note: This is a long and thorough post, so you may want to go grab a cup of coffee…or seven.

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UPDATE: If you guessed that the Canon 80-200mm F/2.8 L Magic Drainpipe was the image on the left, then you are correct. The Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 EX OS is the image on the right. Tomorrow I will write a posting on the test and offer you readers another version based on your comments.

Tell us: which one is the Canon and which one is the Sigma? Both images were shot on the Canon 5D Mk IIon a tripod. Each lens was set to 100mm. Exposure settings were both 1/100th of a second, ISO 6400 and F/2.8. The white balance for each image was set to Tungsten. One is the Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 EX OS that we’re in the middle of reviewing. The other is the Canon 80-200mm F/2.8 L “Magic Drainpipe” that I still swear to. The EXIF data has been stripped from both images using Photoshop Elements.

Can you tell which image is from which lens? Let us know in the comments below. Once this posting hits 100 comments we will reveal which lens is which. If you think you know which one is which, let us know why.

Also note that B&H has deals already listed for the holidays.

Editor’s Note: we used the same middle focusing point for each photo.

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Squirrels are awesome—so when I decided one day that I’d photograph them using the Canon 7D and the Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 EX OS I wanted to see just how sharp some of the images this lens can take can be. Zoomed in at the full 200mm, the little guy in the picture was still pretty far away from my attic window. So what do the crops look like in this unofficial sharpness test?

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