New Canon 70 200mm L4 lens problem?

[T22AGA]

I am a rank noivice ...Just taken some pictrues with my new lens on a canon 550d body and a bit under whelmed at the results at 70mm the colours look fine but at 200mmm they look washed out .. Both shot on auto . no filters & on the setting one down from raw .The annoying thing is my old 75/ 300 the colours are fine at 300mm with the same body . have I got a duff lens ? or is that correct

Edited by T22AGA on Sunday 13th January 15:27

Edited by T22AGA on Sunday 13th January 15:29

Edited by T22AGA on Sunday 13th January 15:43

[velocemitch]

I'm not an expert by a long shot but is the second one perhaps just a bit over exposed hence washy?.

With the 300mm you have more dark objects in the viewfinder so the meter could have been fooled by that and over exposed. Check the exif data and see what it did, I've found my 550D to be a very sensitive to overexposing if it detects dark areas, it also depends (obviously) on which version of the metering you used, spot metering on a dark patch will over expose the remaining lighter parts of the image.

[Crafty_]

I'd agree - different composition.

I don't think a differing focal length on the same lens would cause a difference in colour tones.

[DIW35]

They look a bit softer than I would expect from that lens too. Were you shooting through a glass window?

[RobDickinson]

Use manual mode and the same exposure for both shots.

Colour is mostly influenced by exposure...

[T22AGA]

Thanks for all your comments . I was not shooting through glass .. when I shoot in manual mode no a lot different. I did look on a website and alot of 200mm landscapes look washed out may be this is not a good landscape lens at 200mm. closer objects at 200mm are better .

[RobDickinson]

Atmospheric dust, water and haze (all of which reflects and bounces sunlight around, mostly blue) creates haze.

This is more apparent with distance, and at 200mm your shooting things further away and basically shooting more haze.

[flat-planedCrank]

Do you have your old lens?

Could set it in a tripod, manual mode, then take shots at 200mm on both lenses?

[g3org3y]

T22AGA said:

Thanks for all your comments . I was not shooting through glass .. when I shoot in manual mode no a lot different. I did look on a website and alot of 200mm landscapes look washed out may be this is not a good landscape lens at 200mm. closer objects at 200mm are better .

Assuming this is properly focused, this is not Canon 70-200L sharp imo.

[LongQ]

g3org3y said:

T22AGA said:

Thanks for all your comments . I was not shooting through glass .. when I shoot in manual mode no a lot different. I did look on a website and alot of 200mm landscapes look washed out may be this is not a good landscape lens at 200mm. closer objects at 200mm are better .

Assuming this is properly focused, this is not Canon 70-200L sharp imo.

Bear in mind it may be a lowish res jpg further 'refined' by Thumbsnap (unless you drilled thorugh and fouond something more aligned to the original file).

Really need to assess a RAW file and the EXIF that goes with it.

The 200mm shot does not appear to have any area that is notably sharp but then we don't knwo from the photo where the focus point was, what the shutter speed was and so on. Not saying they are 'wrong', just that we don't know.

Also the 200mm shot, in terms of colour, is seeing a very limited range of colours that are not so helpful in trying to assess a suitable whitebalance. Given that the camera is trying to decide what is closest to 18% grey (or thereabouts) to esatablish a WB value it may struggle. Wide at 70mm the lens is seeing a far greater range and that affords it the possiblility of greater accuracy.

Again a look at the Exif info for both images might well provide some indication of potential problems (or not). Better still if they were available as RAW files, especially when assessing White Balance of course.

Certainly worth going through a few checks before getting onto the aggro and inconvenience of returns.