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Canon FD 300mm F4L or Tokina 300mm F2.8 ..anyone tried both?
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:00 pm    Post subject: Canon FD 300mm F4L or Tokina 300mm F2.8 ..anyone tried both? Reply with quote

Hello!
Just trying to get some comments about both lenses. I will use them for portraits and some sports like Hockey and Rodeo, etc also the Zoo and so on.
So...I am guessing the 300mm F4L will be a higher quality lens overall with less CA and sharper but is it sharper than the Tokina both at F4? I mean, having the extra speed on the Tokina could be nice for low light sport events plus a thin DOF for special shots too but while the Tokina is more expensive usually than the F4L , somehow I am always attracted to the L glass.

Any thoughts? Smile


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I can't offer you a comparison because I've never owned either lens, but I can offer you some perspective at least because I own an equivalent to the Tokina -- the Tamron 60B SP 300mm f/2.8 LDIF. I've done some comparisons between my Tamron and the Canon and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 optics, and I found that it compared very favorably with them.

I also did a fair amount of searching and reading up on any comparisons I could find between the Tamron and the Tokina 300/2.8 SD because I was considering both before finally deciding on the Tamron. And honestly every comparison I read gave a slight edge to the Tamron, mostly in terms of sharpness at wider apertures. I've also done a fair amount of reading about the Canon 300/4L vs the 300/2.8L, being a hard-core Canon FD user and a former owner of the Canon 200/2.8 and 300 f/4 -- not the "L" version, though. And in this case, most of the comparisons I've read between the 300/4L and the 300/2.8L have given the nod to the 300/2.8L as being the better optic, even at f/4. I guess, considering that f/2.8L sold new for about four times what the f/4L did, this shouldn't be too surprising. So anyway, given that I consider my Tamron 300/2.8 to be equivalent to the Canon 300/2.8 and given that the Canon 300/2.8 is better than the Canon 300/4, then by means of the transitive property, this means that the Tamron 300/2.8 LDIF is better than the Canon 300/4L. But does that mean that the Tokina is? Hmmm . . . I dunno. Good question. But I would guess that the two lenses will likely be anywhere from the Tokina having a slight edge to the two lenses being equivalent in image quality.

Still, it always helps to see things for yourself, doesn't it? And what better place than flickr can one go to see examples from all three lenses?

I searched on the Canon 300mm f/4L and came up with these:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?mapReady=1&text=canon%20300mm%20f%2F4L

Then a search on the Tokina 300mm f/2.8 SD:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?mapReady=1&text=tokina%20300mm%20f%2F2.8%20sd

And last, just for good measure, a search on the Tamron 300mm f/2.8 LDIF:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?mapReady=1&text=tamron%2060b%20300mm%20f%2F2.8%20ld

So, you choose. Which do you think is better? Heh, to me, they all look to be very sharp.


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks a lot for such a long post! Smile
Now I have added the Tamron SP 300mm F2.8 to my list as well. From those samples, I like the Tamron a lot specially since there were many portrait samples.
If you have full size Portraits samples wide open, I would love to see them too.
Thanks!