As you begin your career in Photography or when you are just learning the fine nuances of Photography, 70-200 mm focal length is one of the sought after focal lengths, be it Canon or Nikon. Compare 70-200mm lens variants of Canon and then buy the one which justifies your requirements and shooting styles rather than simply buying what others are using. If you shoot mostly in the studio in a controlled environment, do you really need an f2.8 or an IS lens? Spend more only if you need to. An expensive lens does not always have to be better. It may be expensive because it might be more difficult to manufacture that lens. To get the good quality along with an opened aperture the manufacturer may need to add additional glass elements. So the additional stuff may only be to retain its good quality in comparison to a cheaper lens. If you compare various lenses together, you may not be able to spot the differences in quality or sharpness. Yes, if you compare the canon L series of lenses with the cheaper ones you definitely will find the expensive L series far better than the normal ones.

Following are the comparisons between some of the well-known lenses. Guess, which one is a better photograph in terms of sharpness, contrast and other parameters. As you scroll down the details of the lenses are mentioned. You will notice, that it's not always the more expensive or a more hyped lens which gives a better image. And if it is difficult to make out the difference, then probably, it won't show anyways. However, the lenses compared here are all premium lenses, which would most of the times better than the cheaper ones. Depending upon the kind of photography you do, you may decide if you really need to spend the money beyond a point. Lets, say for example if you do not need f 2.8, then f 4 will also give you the same quality and may be even better sometimes. Just compare!

Following are the images of the two popular versions of canon 70-200 mm lens

Following are the images from an expensive and a cheaper lens. which one is better ?

The L series lenses are any day better than the lower range lenses as you can see in the photographs above. Check out the detailed specifications of these 7-200 variants from canon.

Munish Khanna is an Advertising and Fashion Photographer who has specially created one of the best affordable online photography course with a vast experience of teaching photography at his photography academy in Delhi. He has been running his Photography course in Delhi since 1993. He has also set a wedding photography company - Together We Rock with a team of professional wedding photographers and cinematographers. All his actuals photography shoots and assignments are a part of his online photography course as well so you actually get to see the actual shoots besides detailed information on various Photography topics. Munish has been shooting with Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Phaseone amongst several other photography equipment and gadgets