Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Digital camera Review: Canon 100-400mm Zoom Review
Summary: 5 Stars
The lens is suprisingly easy to handle and hold. Canon has kept the weight to a minimum. The image stabilization works very well and the lens takes very good handheld photos. Selected this lens over the shorter telephoto with a 1.6x, because of the much better weight disbursement.Digital camera Review: Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L is a Phenomenal Lens!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my first Canon "L" glass that I purchased and I'm extremely delighted with it's versatility and sharpness. So far, it's just as sharp as my Canon 16-35 f/2.8L and my images are crisp and full of contrast/color. Although it's not as fast as some of the other "L" lenses (300 f/2.8L or 70-200 f/2.8L), this lens does very well. We visited Baltimore on back-to-back weekends (Zoo & Aquarium Dolphin show)and every photo (handheld) was sharp, sharp, sharp!!! Indoors, I cranked up the ISO to around 800 and there are a few photos where I could actually see the water beads on the dolphins skin!!! Outside, it's great around ISO of 100-200. I would definitely recommend this lens to anyone & mine stays in my bag 100% of the time!!!!Digital camera Review: Canon 100-400mm f/5.6 IS L Lens
Summary: 4 Stars
This lens is great for nature and bird photography as long as you have suitable lighting conditions. It's at its best in soft natural light (overcast days), and performs very well in bright sunlight. Tough to get decent shots in low light with moving subjects. Fine for static subjects in low light. Not recommended for use with a 2x teleconverter unless you have a pro camera body (such as a 1Ds MK II) because you will have to focus manually. Works better with a 1.4x converter for greater reach of far away subjects with a 50D type body. Since it's a telephoto, it is not quite as sharp at each end of the focal range, but I find 200-300mm works extremely well. This lens is not extremely heavy, but it does get tiresome to handhold after about 30-40 minutes, at least for me, so a tripod or monopod is highly recommended as a stable support for the best images if your arms are weak and you will be shooting for more than an hour. I use mine on a Wimberley Head and Gitzo Systematic tripod. The zoom feature is a push-pull style that takes some getting used to, and I find it a bit cumbersome. In order to change focal lengths you have to loosen and tighten the zoom ring tension, or set it just so, and I find it a challenge to keep a specific tension without accidentally tightening or loosening the ring while hand-holding and gripping the lens barrel for support. The IS feature works well for hand-held shots. For birds and wildlife, this is an all-around good starter L-series lens. If I had more money to spend, I would have gone for the 300mm f/2.8 IS or 400mm f/2.8 IS however.Digital camera Review: Canon 100-400mm telephoto lens.
Summary: 5 Stars
I upgraded to this I series lens from a Tamron 200-500 telephoto lens and I am very happy that I did.The image quality is noticeably clearer especially at 800mm. (I'm using a Canon 2x extender). It's heavy but you'll be using a tripod anyway. Hey, it's a Canon!Digital camera Review: Canon 100-440mm IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
Summary: 3 Stars
It was an expensive purchase and I thought Canon optics should be superior. Wrong. I have had a mediocre experience with it thus far. Maybe some of the problems are operator error, but not that often. Even when I use a tripod the pictures are less than stellar. The autofocus and IS combination may be part of the problem... not sure. Seems when everything seems in focus through the view finder, the internal stabilization activates with pressure on the shutter button and the resulting picture is out of focus. If I use the IS and manual focus I get a 'little better' results but only when I partially depress the shutter button to activate the IS and then refocus. This is all coupled with the Canon XTi camera. With this camera and the EFS 18-55mm kit lens, the pictures are always well within my standards for sharpness and clarity. The 'out of focus' issue is a perplexing problem. It happens at all focal distances, day and night. Other than that the lens seems to be built to the highest of standards, it is very heavy and one needs to use a mono-pod or tripod. Hand held pictures return sporadic results, at best. Low light conditions are tough but doable with persistence.