Coming to a Conclusion …

Over this past weekend, I made some time to run some more non-scientific tests on the 70-200mm lenses. I shot a whole bunch using Donna’s camera and Donna’s 70-200, with and without the 2X converter. I found the results to be fairly similar to what I was getting with my camera and lens.

I also took a look at a lot of pictures taken by others with the same lens — many also using the 40D body and some also using the 2X converter. In looking at those pictures, I found that folks using cameras with APS-C-sized sensors are having results fairly similar to my own — images taken at close-to-medium distances are fantastic, but those taken a great distances are fairly soft, especially when cropped, like the image at left.

So, while it’s a pretty major disappointment, it seems that I just may be expecting too much from the lens, especially with the 2X converter attached.