A valid question on how much the change in aperture affects depth-of-field, is whether an 70-200mm f/4 zoom would give you the same kind of look that an f/2.8 zoom would.
For me, a fast f/2.8 aperture is essential on a zoom lens, especially the telephoto zooms. For the same scenario, it gives me a higher shutter speed than the f/4 zoom. Or I can use a lower ISO. More importantly, since I often bounce flash in large areas, the f/2.8 aperture gives me more chance of successfully bouncing my flash than an f/4 aperture would.
I always enjoy hearing from photographers who read the articles here. However, as this site has become more popular, and with my own increasingly busy schedule, it is now an impossible workload to reply to the 20+ emails per day, asking questions about photography. The main problem with directly replying to emails is that I am spending an inordinate amount of time on an audience of one. But I have stuff to do!
I do like to help others, and here it is - a photography forum as part of the Tangents blog. Anyone is welcome to post questions and reply to Read more inside...