More from a hand-held walk-about.

mgblack74 wrote:NotASpeckOfCereal wrote:Tony Beach wrote:larswright wrote:I've never understood why people really need 2.8 to be honest.Slightly better AF, an extra stop for lowlight, and more usable with a teleconverter.Also: you can use this as a portrait lens (in the 100-135mm range) in a pinch and will therefore appreciate the narrower DOF.Actually, due to the focus breathing of the 70-200 VRII, the 70-200 f/4 has a shallower DOF at minimum focus. The 2.8 VRII at 200mm at minimum focus distance acts like 135mm. The f/4 version acts like 197mm at 200mm at minimum focus distance. 197 f/4 is shallower than 135 2.8.An f/2.8 aperture will give a nicer blur than an f/4 when you equalize the FOV (which is not even enough for a decent headshot at 3.61 feet and 197mm). Personally, I will typically use f/5.6 for tight portrait types of shots, so either lens would be fine with me as far as that goes.

I want to buy 70-200 for my D850. Which one is sharper? f4 or f2.8? Did anyone compared them on this body?

Panoraw wrote:I want to buy 70-200 for my D850. Which one is sharper? f4 or f2.8?f2,8 but that does not mean f4 is not adequate- Handle them both before buying

TOF guy wrote:Panoraw wrote:I want to buy 70-200 for my D850. Which one is sharper? f4 or f2.8?f2,8At the center at all focal lengths using the same aperture (any aperture of f/4 or smaller), it is my understanding that this applies to all three f/2.8 versions. Looking at Photozone's reviews, the original version falters at 200mm in the edges.but that does not mean f4 is not adequate- Handle them both before buying+1Indeed, for my purposes my rather flawed copy of the original f/2.8 works very well for me on my D800 -- as always, YMMV.

mgblack74 wrote:197 f/4 is shallower than 135 2.8.Not according to an online dof calculator I tried when I kept the subject size the same in the frame. You'll back away from the subject at the longer focal length. At 10 feet for the 135/2.8 the result was a total of 0.18 feet in focus. For 197mm f/4 the dof range was 0.26 feet, 44% greater.This is exactly as expected because those two entrance pupils are very close but the shooting distance is greater for the 197mm case.I'm assuming that the f/2.8 lens is still f/2.8 even when focus breathing is in effect. Is it?