Christmas Eve with the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II

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For Christmas I purchased the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II which replaces my Canon 70-200 f/4.  The main reason I wanted this lens was the extra stop (f/2.8) and the IS (image stabilization) because I plan to shoot more weddings this next year and typically the inside of a Church is often a lighting challenge.  The first thing I noticed when unpacked and took it out of the box was the weight difference with the f/4 version.  This lens is quite heavy.  It’s bigger, heavier and comes with a tripod collar which adds more weight.  This isn’t an extensive review of the lens.  I’ll be posting an extensive review of my experience with this lens later after I shoot more with it but I did have the opportunity to shoot it at a candle light Christmas Eve service at our local church.  It performed quite well and for my first experience and use of the lens I was quite happy.  I used a Canon 5D Mark II for all images posted below.

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II | f/2.8 @ 200mm | 1/200th sec | ISO 500

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II | f/2.8 @ 200mm | 1/200th sec. | ISO 3200

Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II | f/2.8 @ 70mm | 1/15th sec. | ISO 3200

You can see more images from this shoot over on my Flickr site.  For the first outing with this lens I was pretty happy and impressed.  It performed quite well in situations my f/4 would have complained about.  Of course the f/4 is also a fraction of the price of the f/2.8 IS.  Thankfully the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II was on sale and remains on sale through January 7th 2012. While I loved the low light performance the weight may be a factor to take into consideration as I begin using it to shoot weddings this next year.  Time to step up the workouts!

In a few weeks as I have more opportunities to shoot with it I’ll post a more detailed review of this lens and my thoughts on it compared with the f/4 non-IS which has always been one of my favorite lenses because it’s just so ultra sharp.  By the way, did you find a new lens under the tree this year?

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