tokina and sigma make 100-300 f/4 lenses. the range hasn't really taken off. too slow and too long on the short to be a whole range portrait lens, and too short on the long side to be a super tele for sports or wildlife. it gets better on a crop camera, of course (7D could put more pixels on target with a 300 mm lens than anything else, that includes 4/3 cameras).
Yeah, everything tele is better on a crop.
I guess I just don't see how much that 75-100mm range gains you on the short end when you could have constant f/4 from 100-300 instead of f/4-f/5.6 from 75-300. I think that people are just too used to the cheapy 75-300's that have always been around. They complemented the kit 35-80, 28-80, 28-90 etc. kit lenses that came with the film SLR's. It was a good, cheap 2-lens solution from 28 to 300mm, for pretty much all the major SLR brands. Now there are the 55-2xx's (e.g. Canon's 55-250 IS is really good) for the mass-market croppers to complement the 18-55 kit lenses, and the full-frame guys all have 70-200's anyway, so I guess I'm left wondering why there's still a big market for 75-300 type lenses when they could move upmarket a *bit*, gain a fixed maximum aperture and maybe some IQ as well by chopping off those 25mm on the short end.
Well it's only a PITA if you consider it so! Some people don't! By the way, did I mention I'm actually a Nikon shooter?! :0 While I'm familiar with the Canon stuff, my real experience is with Nikon. The enemy I know! *cough* Nikon has a 200-400 f/4 VR *cough* 😉 What they haven't had for a long time though is some constant f/4 zooms on the shorter end. That is one area that has long been real nice for a Canon shooter. Nikon is only recently looking like they are changing that. Just recently released a 16-35 f/4 VR and now a brand new 24-120 f/4 VR! Is just starting to ship now so many are still waiting to see how well it performs.
Me personally I have a casual "walk around" zoom which is the Nikon 16-85 VR (DX, crop body lens). I don't mind the variable aperature except for when I use flash, and when I really need to shoot manually and thus have to kind of limit myself to f/5.6 in order to stay "constant" though the zoom range. But it's is a wonderful focal length range when you want a light one lens solution. However, I do have other options: I have the excellent-for-the-moeny Nikon 35mm f/1.8 which I use often instead of the zoom, and a Tamon 90 macro. Last but not least...and my favorite, is the 70-200 f/2.8 VR1. I love that thing. When I'm shooting long with that, especially in lower light....you better believe I appreciate the constant f/2.8!!
PS- They (canon and nikon) definitely CAN make 75-300, or 100-300 f/4's. They's been done before by others. It'll just be big and somewhat heavy, and fairly expensive. They just have to choose to do it....as evidenced by Nikon's 200-400 f/4 which has been very popular though it is quite expensive!
I know about the new Nikon f/4 zooms, they are quite exciting and might have once enticed me to go Nikon instead of Canon. I really liked that Canon had parallel ranges of "L" zooms in both f/2.8 and f/4 options. Maybe the Nikon 24-120 can push Canon to extend the range of the 24-105L a little more. I love my 24-105L, but I could always use the extra range!
I shoot in manual exposure mode 99% of the time. I just like to do it, it's what makes photography enjoyable for me. In-camera metering is my guide, not my master. I'd rather make my own decisions and my own mistakes than look at a photo and know that it was overexposed because the meter was reading a black shirt instead of a light face. I use the histogram and chimp a lot. I also like to know exactly, all the time, what my exposure settings will be. I set the ISO, the aperture, the shutter speed. If it's too dark, I get a dark exposure, but at least it isn't blurry because the camera decided that it needed 1/15th second. Anyway, you can see why I prefer my zooms to have constant max aperture. It would just piss me off non-stop to have a variable max aperture zoom.
I also know about the Nikon 200-400. I keep wondering why Canon doesn't copy it. That and the 14-24, mmmmm delicious. Nikon's optical engineers are just so smart! Some of those designs are almost miraculous.
My lenses are in my sig. The 24-105 is most used, the 50/1.4 probably 2nd, the 70-200 stays on the 20D, and the 100Macro gets used a lot around the house. The 17-40 is probably my least-used, but there's no substitute for an ultrawide when you need one (I wouldn't mind trading it for, say, a 17mm f/2.8 prime of similar size, weight, and price).
