Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II....at last, it's announced!!

Just for info. WEX currently doing lens for £1844 and are offering a £250 trade in bonus against any lens traded in for one. So if you've got an old lens worth zip then £1594 if you trade it in!!
 
Good price for a uk lens, but it's hard to ignore panamoz prices when you're already stretching yourself....
 
Picked one up from HDEW with their black Friday deals for £1299 with a vat receipt had to wait a bit longer to get it but more than happy with the service.
 
zeb said:
Picked one up from HDEW with their black Friday deals for £1299 with a vat receipt had to wait a bit longer to get it but more than happy with the service.
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....HDEW is where I bought mine last February but was £1,700 back then but absolutely no regrets. I am very happy with HDEW's aftersales service (I dropped the lens and needed a repair) and have since bought other items from them. Much better customer service than Park Cameras! And cheaper of course - 'Pale grey' not 'grey'.

Fabulous lens gaining a well deserved excellent reputation.
 
Just back from India and used the lens almost exclusively on the 1Dx.

As expected, performed extremely well,I saw many people "over lensed" and missing shots just because they didn't have a zoom facility.

Very pleased.

George.
 
George said:
I saw many people "over lensed" and missing shots just because they didn't have a zoom facility.
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....Which is exactly why I sold my Canon L 300mm and 400mm primes to buy this lens.

Glad to hear you had such a successful and enjoyable trip, George :)

 
Thanks, Robin, yes it was good.

The real laugh however is that there is a "snob" value amongst some of the young Indian lads who have to be seen with the biggest (and therefore the most expensive) lens available....but having seen them in action it's no wonder the local togs laugh at them!!.....hand holding a 600 prime is a favourite pastime and must result in a lot of blurred shots!
 
Hey all, I wanted to ask a quick question about this lens. How do you guys find it at 400mm? Is it sharp? And is it as sharp as it is at 100mm?

Reason I ask is I had the original version of this lens and mine wasn't sharp at the long end.

TIA
 
Having briefly tried to original I know what you mean about it being a little soft. I've not used the new version but by all accounts it's sharp at all mm's
 
antc said:
Hey all, I wanted to ask a quick question about this lens. How do you guys find it at 400mm? Is it sharp? And is it as sharp as it is at 100mm?

Reason I ask is I had the original version of this lens and mine wasn't sharp at the long end.

TIA
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Antony, it's sharp throughout the range....you need have no worries on that count!!

George.
 
There definitely seems to be a shift in quality of zooms compared to 5+ years ago. IQ has certainly moved forward a few steps. I'd imagine primes are becoming less popular?
Of course a zoom can't replace that isolation a prime offers.

I've certainly had a shift it the way I use my lenses.
 
Ross_Curtis said:
There definitely seems to be a shift in quality of zooms compared to 5+ years ago. IQ has certainly moved forward a few steps. I'd imagine primes are becoming less popular?
Of course a zoom can't replace that isolation a prime offers.
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....I sold my Canon L 300mm and 400mm primes (renowned for their sharpness) to buy the 100-400mm L II and I find that the zoom lens' IQ is equal for my purposes. I too find mine sharp at 400mm f/5.6 - I am surprised how sharp this lens is when wide open because a shallow DoF tends to reduce the area in focus.

What is meant by "a zoom can't replace that isolation a prime offers" please? I thought that 'isolation' was what every telephoto lens offered regardless of being prime or zoom.
 
RedRobin said:
What is meant by "a zoom can't replace that isolation a prime offers" please? I thought that 'isolation' was what every telephoto lens offered regardless of being prime or zoom.
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Primes can offer superior isolation because they can be made with wider maximum apertures than zooms.
 
StewartR said:
Primes can offer superior isolation because they can be made with wider maximum apertures than zooms.
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That's certainly true, but long focal lengths are also very good at subject isolation because of their narrower field of view. For a given size of subject in the frame, a longer lens shows much less background that is therefore effectively enlarged (compared to a shorter lens, used at closer distance). The background shows much less clutter with more simplified shapes, and while depth of field technically remains (almost) the same, the visual effect is very like using a much lower f/number.

If the two effects are combined, say with a 400mm f/2.8 lens, background details become pretty much completely eliminated. With a typical bird portrait, you end up with something that almost looks like it was shot in a studio against a plain background.
 
Joined the club with this lens today! :)

For anyone looking to buy one who doesn't want to go grey, be aware that Amazon Germany is currently selling this far far cheaper than any UK retailer at around £1425 at current exchange rates. Not sure what the delivery charge would be but, as it's within the EU, it's not a grey import and the Canon warranty will be fully intact :)
 
I must admit to being very impressed with this lens superb image quality. At firstly I was highly sceptical about what to expect I am even impressed with the AF capability when fitted with the 1.4 extender in low light and the image quality.
Rich
 
lost said:
I must admit to being very impressed with this lens superb image quality. At firstly I was highly sceptical about what to expect I am even impressed with the AF capability when fitted with the 1.4 extender in low light and the image quality.
Rich
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....I felt similarly back in February (2015) when I bought the lens and I continue to be very impressed but although I am very impressed with image quality when the 1.4x Extender is mounted I do not like the reduction in AF speed which the combo consequently has. I am referring specifically to inflight shots of birds. But overall it is impressive and I always carry my 1.4x III in a pocket ready to use.

I watched a video at the time the lens was launched in which an official Canon guy said that the lens had been "optimised" (his actual word) to work well with the 1.4x Extender but that it must be the mk III in order to exploit the optimisation. The benefit of mounting the combo with the Canon 7D Mark II was also mentioned.
 
I have just got this lens and it was a bit soft at 400mm, it had a uv filter on which I have removed and it has improved it, apparently they aren't keep on filters? Not sure how true that is, but mine was clearly being effected by it (and its a £49 uv filter so not cheap and nasty)
 
Without getting into the filter argument all over again, be aware that, without one, it's not weather sealed.

That said, I'd be interested in some 100% crops with and without the filter to see the difference.
 
Studio488 said:
I have just got this lens and it was a bit soft at 400mm, it had a uv filter on which I have removed and it has improved it, apparently they aren't keep on filters? Not sure how true that is, but mine was clearly being effected by it (and its a £49 uv filter so not cheap and nasty)
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It's not the lens as such, but the focal length. Longer lenses magnify the slightest imperfections. Protection filters are an even worse idea on telephotos than they are on shorter focal lengths - unless the lens actually does need protecting in some situations.

The Mk1 Canon 100-400 picked up an unfair reputation for all kinds of things, but that's simply due to the vast number of them around after 15 years in production. It's probably the biggest-selling telezoom of all time.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Without getting into the filter argument all over again, be aware that, without one, it's not weather sealed.
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Would just like to point out that I was talking rubbish here - a filter is not required to weather-seal this lens, that was erroneous information garnered from the Digital Picture site.

Only sealed lenses where the front element moves within the barrel require a filter in order to be fully sealed. An example is the 16-35 f/4L (and probably the 16-35 f/2.8L II and 17-40 f/4L too)
 
Anyone used and extender on this lens, heard conflicting reports? Just before I pull the trigger on a 1.4?

Thanks
 
Studio488 said:
Anyone used and extender on this lens, heard conflicting reports? Just before I pull the trigger on a 1.4?

Thanks
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....Yes. the extender combo has been extensively (excuse the pun!) discussed recently in this thread < Check it out: Reply #535. Alternatively, the short answer is that it works well as a combo but the 1.4x mkIII is the one you should use.
 
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Ok, trigger pulled.

Thanks.
 
For those who are asking about the image quality when a Canon 1.4x Extender III is mounted on the 100-400mm L II, I have found it much better than I expected and this photo I took of the female Kestrel illustrates this well.

As said earlier, I personally find that with the extender mounted the AF speed suffers a bit when tracking moving subjects but certainly not enough to make every shot just a game of chance. It's just that for bird in-flight shots I much prefer the lens' performance without the extender mounted. I am shooting on a 7D Mark II.



^ Substantially enlarged - This final image is approx 1/6th (~17%) of the original area. Click the image for more info on Flickr.

And on the camera's screen it looked like a turd! However, being shot RAW and with help from CaptureOne Pro the turd polished up very well in my opinion and I now actually like the shot!
 
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I'd imagine the biggest issue for BIF or other moving targets with an extender wouldn't be the f/8 aperture per se but rather that only the centre AF point would work. I usually use a cluster of AF points when tracking moving targets as keeping a single one on the subject at all times is challenging.
 
Vertigo1 said:
I'd imagine the biggest issue for BIF or other moving targets with an extender wouldn't be the f/8 aperture per se but rather that only the centre AF point would work. I usually use a cluster of AF points when tracking moving targets as keeping a single one on the subject at all times is challenging.
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....That can be a problem but not quite as bad according to which body the lens is mounted on. I get 9 AF points with AI SERVO on my 7D Mark II (I think!) - It's been a while due to poor weather. Also it helps keeping on target in the viewfinder if you twist the zoom back to say 300mm or a focal length to suit the circumstances.
 
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Finally got round to micro-adjusting mine. As I suspected it's spot on at 400mm and only -4 needed at 100mm. I think that's the least I've had to adjust any lens on my bodies.
 
I've found that the latest lenses need much less MFA than the older ones.
 
It's all down to manufacturing tolerances, not only with the lenses but with the bodies too. I guess, as manufacturing methods are improved and refined, the lenses become more consistent, although the body could still be quite a way out.

My old 7D seemed to need far more adjustment than any other body I've had which allowed adjustment, from which I surmised that the body itself was quite a way out.

My 70-200 was atrocious when new, requiring about -4 at one end and +10 at the other. Whilst newer bodies now allow separate adjustments at each end for a zoom, my 7D at the time did not so it went straight to Canon to be fixed so it was consistent across the focal range.
 
Has anyone done an 'image crop vs 1.4x extender' comparison on the 7d2 with this lens?

Researching other lenses/cameras and x1.4 extenders proves inconclusive. Some say a cropped imaged is effectively a digital zoom and optical zoom always wins, others that the additional extender optic artifacts are worse and you are better off cropping.
 
The Digital Picture site has specific reviews of the extenders where they've done exactly this - compared extenders to digital cropping & zooming. Not lens specific but gives you an idea. For the record, a 1.4x will always be better than cropping & zooming.
 
If anyone is curious I tested my kenko 1.4x dgx 300 (I don't have the new 'hd' one) and it worked with the 100-400ii on my 5d2 and 7d. I was only taking a couple of moon photo's using centre point. Focus was faster and more reliable on the 5d2.
 
Currently on a flash sale on Hdew Cameras @ £1289 until 22nd February.
 
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