Is it faster to check a file's existence prior to loading, or to catch the exception when it doesn't exist?

I have been recommended to use the second, try-except variant, but I would also like to know what others think: which procedure of the two below (if any) is more time-efficient?

procedure LoadImage(img: TImage; filename: string);
begin
  if fileexists(filename) then
    img.Picture.Loadfromfile(filename)
  else
    img.Picture.Loadfromfile('default.jpg')
end;

or

procedure LoadImage(img: TImage; filename: string);
begin
  try
    img.Picture.Loadfromfile(filename)
  except
    img.Picture.Loadfromfile('default.jpg')
  end
end;