Do I NEED a Canon 70-200 f2.8 is ii

NickTB

NickTB

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Or can I 'Get away' with the mki?

As a background, I put an ad in the wanted section for some lenses and a body. I bought the expected funds have been delayed until the beginning of Feb, forcing me to wait for the lenses.

My original ad was for the following lenses:

Canon 70-200 f 2.8is ii

Canon 24-70 f 2.8 L

Canon 35mm f1.4 L

Now, as I'm having to wait, I'm starting to wonder if I NEED the mkii 70-200 or will the mki suffice? Or any of the others? I intend to really get into portraits and setting up a home studio.

So my question is, do I NEED those lenses? will the older versions be just as good? would I be wiser spending my money on "lesser" lenses and using the savings for a good lighting set up? or will I actually notice the difference bwtween a mki and a mkii?

Thanks in advance,

Nick
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I doubt your customers would notice the difference between a mk1 and a mk2.
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This seems to be the conclusion I'm arriving at.. Although my next worry is a mki is obviously older than a mkii so I run the risk of buying a workhorse that may or may not have a lesser life expectancy
 
NickTB said:
This seems to be the conclusion I'm arriving at.. Although my next worry is a mki is obviously older than a mkii so I run the risk of buying a workhorse that may or may not have a lesser life expectancy
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Look for the best one you can get for your budget.
 
Yeah I agree. You can't tell much between the cheapest 70-200 f4 and the mk2 2.8 I've owned them both and both were great. You can't go wrong with the mk1.

As for a 35mm I'd go with a sigma 35 1.4 again I've owned both 35mm lenses and the sigma was better. Chromatic aberration was bad in the Canon one. It's a lot better in the mk2 canon but the price is crazy.

I've had the Canon 24 70 2.8 mk1 and m2 and the Canon 24 105 f4. I've had very sharp images with the 24 105 but wanted the 2.8. I sold the mk2 as I didn't find it much use to what I was shooting.
 
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As I understand it, the 24-70 mkii isn't a massive upgrade to the mki, especially considering the extra cost involved?
 
Upgraded to a 70-200 mkll from the mk1 and found it noticeably sharper but use it for sport/ aviation so you may get away with it for portraiture with a mkl

Also moved to 24-70 mkll 2.8 and whilst I like the lens I kinda miss my 24-105 mm and you can pick these up quite cheap now the mkll is out?
 
NickTB said:
As I understand it, the 24-70 mkii isn't a massive upgrade to the mki, especially considering the extra cost involved?
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That's exactly how I felt. Again I got some great shots with the 24 105 and they are going pretty cheap these days.
 
Well if you can afford the mkii and it's what you want - go for it.

You'll get the mki and be thinking, hmm should I have got the mkii otherwise...
 
andyred said:
Well if you can afford the mkii and it's what you want - go for it.

You'll get the mki and be thinking, hmm should I have got the mkii otherwise...
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This is my dilemma. I can afford the mkii but I'd like to be sensible and save some money. I'm not trying to justify the purchase as I don't even know if I'd notice a discernible difference (other than cost!)
 
LBJNBA said:
That's exactly how I felt. Again I got some great shots with the 24 105 and they are going pretty cheap these days.
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And paraphrasing a lens hire site these lenses don't turn bad overnight. Hence my question. I'm quite glad the funds were delayed now!
 
NickTB said:
This is my dilemma. I can afford the mkii but I'd like to be sensible and save some money. I'm not trying to justify the purchase as I don't even know if I'd notice a discernible difference (other than cost!)
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[emoji3]

Head or heart then - which rules.

Is there a way you could try out both to satisfy you either way - you can notice a difference, you buy mkii, you can't notice a difference, you buy mki ...

I went through a similar process when I was looking to get one, I hummed and went through pros and cons of both, difference in cost etc, how much I'd save, so on and so on. But I kept coming back to would I be happy with the mki and wish I'd bought the mkii.

This for me made my mind up, as I kept coming back to it and thinking - I spent and bought the mkii. No regrets at all and it's surprising how quick you forget what it cost [emoji3]
 
Get the mki. If you don't like it sell it on, surely you won't lose too much on it. I have the mki and for my requirements it ticks all boxes.
Be mindful its a heavy beast if you are lugging it about all day.....
 
I have the mkii and it is without doubt the sharpest lens I've ever used. Its my go to lens for everything. I absolutely love it. That said I haven't used the new f4 which used with the higher iso's available now may be very capable.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
Do you need 2.8 for studio portraiture?
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As I've recently moved into a new house which has a good area for natural light, I assumed the 2.8 would be better for utilising that. My thinking is f4 wouldn't handle the lower light
 
mkii is the way forward. mk1s will soon stop being serviced by Canon in the future, and they are not as sharp, and IS significantly inferior. Old 24-70 were also pretty problematic - 1 good copy out of around 3 in my experience. Price diff in used market is not enough to justify the oldies.
 
I've owned a Mk1 for nine years and have never had a reason to doubt its ability to produce pin sharp images under most situations.

I use mine for nature photography in my garden when I want a nice shallow DOF but, more often, I've used it to photograph theatrical productions under natural lighting conditions, usually from a position towards the back of the auditorium. With my 5D Mk3 at ISO 6400 (or higher) the results are always pleasing, even at wider apertures (from f/2.8 to f/5.6).

As an aside re the 24-70 ... I recently part exchanged my 24-70mm f/2.8L USM to offset the cost of buying the new 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM. Having owned the 24-70 for a number of years, I found that I hardly ever used it because I so often needed that extra focal length between 70 and 105. With a 5D Mk3 you can shoot at f/4 with really high ISO settings with very little loss of sharpness (a little noise maybe, which can be addressed user the luminance, chroma and chroma detail sliders in PS). Only if you want a really shallow DOF for portraiture (not a requirement for me personally, but if it was, the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM would work well), would I think that the 24-70mm f/2.8L was 'necessary' .. and the MkII version is just so expensive!
 
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