Canon EF 100400mm f4.55.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom
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There is a lot of Digital Photography Guide which offers various camera lenses information of different types and brands just like Canon EF 100-400mm. The Canon 100 400mm EF has a great focal length range which features the longest focal length among all the products of Canon zoom lens, 400 mm. The Canon EF 100 400mm EF is an extended focal length and its focal length range mix with a very good quality image as well as build quality to make the Canon EF 100-400mm among the most famed wildlife and sports camera lenses the Canon sells.
To mention that the Canon EF 100 400mm EF is among the Canon L Series would quickly say a lot about this. It weights around 3 pounds and measures 3.6×7.4 inches, and the Canon EF 100-400mm is sturdily built.
Among the most well-liked features of Canon EF 100 400mm EF is that it has great image stabilization feature. The great image stabilizer is a great help and is very significant especially during handholding in a low light. That is, if you still have a subject. Although the Canon EF 100-400mm’s image stabilization system is able to detect tripod and instantly disable itself, turning the image stabilizer off when using tripod would save battery life and cause it to be placed in a centered position. You can also calculate the image stabilizer on this lens which will help with two stops, or of the handhold shutter speed ability.
Some people consider the Canon EF 100 400mm EF to be a slow aperture lens. It starts at f/4.5, and the 100-400 goes towards f/5 within 130 mm and finally reaches to f/5.6 at about 250 mm. featuring the contemporary 3-stop image stabilizer for great camera shake reduction, the Canon EF 100-400mm also features superior responsive auto-focus. It replaces the first interchangeable camera lens all over the world, and it is expected to attract serious nature as well as sports photographers looking to get outstanding results while shooting handheld.
The image stabilizer dramatically decreases the image blur that is caused by any camera shake. The Canon EF 100 400mm EF features the latest 3-stop image stabilizer, and is a one-stop improvement to its other predecessor. This feature would allow shutter speeds of up to three stops, which is slower than it would otherwise be possible. more info
Canon EF 100 – 400
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have had this lens a couple of weeks. I have nothing to compare it to;however so far I am very pleased with the Canon EF 100 – 400 lens. It seems to be easy to use. I have experimented with taking a photo on my tripod set at 400 mm and a photo hand held set at 400 mm. I am pleased as to how well the Stabilizer works. Both photos came out clear. Even being hand held. It works well to get those bird shots on the wing.
Just what I needed!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Up to now all of my lenses have been 100mm and below, since I take a lot of photos of scenery, macros and portraits. More recently I’ve wanted a bit of reach and this lense really does the job well. I read many reviews describing how it takes a bit to get used to the zooming mechanism and they were right it does take a bit of work, however once you get it adjusted to a comfortable tightness it works really well and makes it easy (especially on a tripod) to take pictures of any action. The pictures I took of my daughter’s soccer game were crisp and had great contrast. I’m very happy that I finally took the plunge. I would recommend that this lens be used on either a tripod or monopod if it is going to be used for an extended period, though hand held shots came out nicely as well with the IS.
– UPDATE 12/28/2009 –
I just came back from a trip to Costa Rica and although it was a heavy lens to carry around, it was just what I needed for a trip like this. I used it on a 5D II hand-held for most of the trip and it performed very well. I was able to capture photos/videos of sloths, monkeys and more. The focus speed was sufficient for what I was doing and the IS definitely helped capture the shot when I couldn’t use a tripod (most of the time). I did find as was mentioned previously that the Canon 1.4x extender does not work to auto-focus the camera with this lens.
I can still say after this trip that this lens was: Just what I needed!
Soft Copy of the lens
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Hello,
I have received this product and this is defective where I am getting very soft images at all fStops. I called up Canon customer care for replaacement but they did not give me that option. I have returned to India now and I spoke to Canon India, they said that they will charge for it.
Anil
Canon 100-440mm IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
Rating:3 out of 5 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.
Canon EF 100-400mm zoom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve not had a chance to use this lense a lot, but the few shots I have taken have been incredibly sharp. It’s an amazing piece of technology! Highly recommended.
Great (big) lens.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a great lens. It’s very big and gets comments almost everywhere. It’s heavy, but I try to take it hiking with me as much as possible. You can hook the tripod collar foot over the chest strap on your backpack and let your shoulders and back carry the weight rather than your neck, plus it’s closer to the ready position from there.
It’s one of the best birding lenses out there. The range is perfect and the push-pull zoom allows you to easily catch a moving subject and pull the zoom in to fill the frame. And with the crop factor on my 40D it looks like a 640mm lens from the viewfinder
The optics are fantastic. My images with this lens are startlingly sharp, vibrant and full of color. The image stabilization is unbelievable. I hand-hold this lens 99% of the time and my shots are nearly always sharp. Granted I know what I’m doing, but still, the day it arrived I handheld a 1/60 sec shot at 400mm of a t-shirt about 10 feet away. It was so sharp you could see the individual bits of fuzz on each strand of thread. Handheld.
Wildlife shooting with 100-400mm
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have owned this lens for several years…it is indispensable for shooting wildlife…especially in Africa that I visit every year. Attached to my Canon 40D (I’m now using 7D) it gives me comparable 160-640mm focal length and I only use it on camera that has 1.6 sensor ‘conversion’. Pictures are excellent…Image Stabilization is essential. Yes, it’s heavy, but I could not be without it. I do a lot of hand held shooting and also use a monopod when beanbags not available. I use Canon 28-300mm IS lens on Canon 5D Mark II when long lens not needed. 1:1 on 5D II is great, and 28-300 covers most situations. Yes, the 28-300mm lens is also heavy, but this senior lady is used to carrying it, and the versatility of 28-300 range is fabulous, so I never need more than 2 lenses to tote in a rolling camera bag. When not toting long 100-400, I put a 17-35 on one body as a backup.
Canon 100-400mm f/5.6 IS L Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 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.
A yaer later, still love it
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought this lens a year ago for the Rebel XSi and have taken thousands (yes, thousands) of pictures with it. I use it hand-held, to take nature pictures and of “events” such as parades, baseball games and historical re-enactments. The lens is fast enough to freeze action on the sports field, catch flames shooting from a cannon’s mouth and gives me enough detail to crop a picture of a bird at the top of a tree to allow me to easily identify and print a good picture of the bird. A potential buyer should be aware of the 1.6 crop factor with some of the Canons such as the Rebel 450d (XSi). The 100-400mm lens becomes a 160-640mm lens. I recommend this lens without hesitation for any type of long range photography needs.
Very good lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Got great pics with this lens. Took it out for a one week safari earlier this month and the pics were the best I have ever taken. One minor complaint — wish it has a lock, as it so big and heavy, that without a lens lock, it sometimes can slide out unexpectedly.
Canon EF 100-400 MM F 4.5-5.6 IS USM Zoom Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
As an amateur nature photographer I wanted to purchase a lens that would let me get closer to my subjects, (affectionality referred to as critters), without disturbing them, while, feeding, flying, or playing. This lens really delivers great results. My bird in flight shots are crisp and clear. The details that I now obtain are vivid and it has enabled me to finally achieve the nature photos that I wanted without spending thousands of dollars.
I would highly recommend this lens to nature or wildlife photographers.
Great lens — especially for sports and safari
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought this lens to take on safari and to use with sports. Works great for both. I especially appreciate it’s ability to cover the complete range of 100 to 400 without a lens change.
I’m sure primes may be sharper at a given focal length, but we weren’t in a position to buy or carry that many prime lenses.
But this lens.
Fantastic Professional Lens for Sharp, Up Close Photos
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just got my Canon 100-400mm IS L lens last week. I took it out and gave it a workout yesterday at the Zoo with what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: shooting baby lions that are rarely seen by the public. Prior to this, I was using a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras with the Canon EF 2X II Extender Telephoto Accessory when I needed more than 200mm. A website reviewer’s photos demonstrating how much blur the extender adds convinced me to sink the necessary funds into the 100-400mm lens. And boy, was it worth it! I had struggled with how soft images came out with the extender, even when I used a tripod and a shutter release. But I did all handheld work yesterday with tumbling, rambunctious baby lions in cloudy conditions, and got fantastically sharp, close photographs, even at 400mm.
There are a couple of things people seem to complain about with this lens. First, that it’s heavy, and second, the push-pull zoom. I want to address both.
Weight: Yes, after shooting for 3 hours with this 3-pound baby, my arm was tired, but it wasn’t a hardship by any means, and I wasn’t sore the next day. The lens also has a tripod ring on it so when you use a tripod you can mount the lens directly onto the tripod, if the weight really bothers you. The nice thing is that it’s a solid, well-made lens.
Push-pull zoom: I expected to find it frustrating, at least until I got used to it, but I got used to it in minutes and found it was actually beneficial — I could shift from 100 to 400mm (or anywhere in between) much faster than I could have if I’d been twisting to zoom. I also quickly got into the habit of twisting the resistance ring that changes how easily the push-pull mechanism works. As soon as I changed the focal length, I’d twist to keep it there, but not so tightly that I couldn’t change again if I wanted to. I had no problems with the lens slipping out to its full extension when I didn’t want it to, even when I quickly lowered the camera. (Had to do that several times given that Mama Lion didn’t like big camera and lunged the fence more than once. It was a nice, sturdy fence, so I was safe, but I didn’t want to upset her, nor did I want a big lunging lion looming between me and the babies and blocking the view.)
Auto-focus is quiet and quick, and though once in a while I had a bit of trouble focusing through fairly close-set bars, I got so many amazing shots that I can forgive the very few I missed while the focusing was struggling. I also used the lens with a pacing tiger, and the lens and camera (EOS 40D) were able to work quickly enough to get far more sharp pictures than blurry, even when the tiger was close and moving fast.
The Image Stabilization is amazing. Neither of my other two lenses has it, but I’d never buy another lens without it!
You can focus in on subjects as close as 1.8m, which is great with animals who are constantly doing the unexpected. When the tiger came right up to the glass, I could take a few steps back and get photos that were as sharp as the ones I took of the animal farther away.
Finally, I noticed that at 200mm, the fence was still in the picture. At 400mm, the fence vanished completely, even when I (and the cubs) were fairly close to it (though not on the same side!
If I’d been relying on my regular lens and the extender, I know the final shots wouldn’t have looked like they were taken in the wild — which is always the goal!
Bottom line: fantastic investment for a fantastic lens
Canon 100-400mm telephoto lens.
Rating:5 out of 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!
Canon EF100-400mm f 4.5-5.6L
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a great piece of glass. It was just too Big and slow for me. If you have good bright light And really need the reach this lens will make some really great shots. I loved the IS, But for me it was just a little slow and a bit cumbersome. I opted to return it and get the EF70-200 f 2.8L. No Bad words about this lens, it just fits in a niche that isn’t for me.