My Thoughts on the 70-200mm Class of Lenses

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 .