Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
by Canon
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: CanonModel: 2530A017
Product features:
- EF mount; telephoto lens
- Ultra-low Dispersion glass with Fluorite elements; inner focusing ring; full-time manual focus; image stabilizer
- 300mm focal length
- f/4 maximum aperture
- Micro UltraSonic Motor (USM)
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Customer Review: my favorite prime lens
Summary: 5 Stars
My preferences are tele and macro photos, currently I use an EOS 50D body and as a backup an EOS 450D (Rebel XSi). After several thousand shots out in the wilderness the 300 mm/ f4.0 IS USM turned out to be my favorite lens - to my own suprise even for macros if I cannot get quite close. It's closest distance of 1.5 m makes it very useful for that purpose. In particular it is interesting to compare it with another lens that I use in such "keep distance" macro situations: Tamron's 70-200 mm f/2.8 macro as this zoom has an excellent optics and is very sharp (according to many reviews sharper than Canon's 70-200 mm f/2.8 L IS USM). But it has a disappointingly old fashioned, slow, loud and inaccurate autofocus (AF) drive, combined with the lack of any image stabilization.
So I end up to only use this zoom if I have enough time to focus manually and I carry a mono- or tripod with me. Shooting with the EF 300 mm beams me then from the stone age of photography to the current state of the art. It is such a pleasure to use! It is still light enough for hand-held shots, the AF is so quick that you really can try to catch flying birds, and it works silently and precisely. The IS system is not Canon's latest generation but very reliable. In practise you win about 2-3 aperture stops, i.e. even hand-hold shots at about 1/100 s are basically sharp (if the subject isn't too fast of course).
The most important argument in favorite of the EF 300 mm f/4L IS USM is its superiour picture quality. In particular I love it's soft, harmonic bokeh (background blur). The Tamron zoom does not meet this nice bokeh completely though it is not bad and - like many zooms - it can produce some visible chromatic aberration (CA) under bright contrasty conditions. With the EF 300 mm you never have to worry about CA. Since the pictures are so sharp I can well accept in macro situations, that Canon's 300 mm provides "only" a 0.24 magnification (the Tamron 1:1), because crops of the 300 mm tele pictures still look very good. Personally, I can accept light-hardedly the limitations of a prime lens. If I cannot catch the whole bird within the frame I shoot its portrait and am happy with the fantastic result.
Pros:
- extremely sharp already with open aperture
- no issues with chromatic aberration
- no issues with vignetting (at least not with a crop DSLR such as a EOS 40/50D or a Rebel body)
- wonderful bokeh (background blur)
- silent, fast and accurate AF
- very good 2-mode IS (one mode for standard situations, one for quickly moving objects)
- professional L quality, perfect look & feel
- closest distance of 1.5 m opens up serious macro potential (versus 2.5 m of the faster and bigger 300 mm f/2.8 L IS USM)
- makes effectively a decent 480 mm tele lens on a crop DSLR with a smaller sensor (such as the 50D)
- f 4.0 is still fast enough to combine it with a tele extender: I use Kenko's very sharp Kenko 1.4X PRO 300 TeleconverterDG-Canon EOS which delivers effectively a huge 672 mm tele lens on a crop DSLR (it slows down AF but still can produce acceptably sharp results)
- still light enough for hand-held shots
- nice retractable "slide and screw" lens hood
- very well balanced in the hand, even with a small rebel body
- expensive, but still good price-performance ratio.
Cons:
- AF sometimes hunts if the background is vivid: therefore I programmed my 50D so I can stop this with its AF-ON button
- f 4.0 is okay but faster f 2.8 would be, of course, sometimes better (freezing fast movements in particular drives crop DSLR users quickly to noisier ISO 800+ settings)
- well, finally: it's a pity that physics will never allow to create any zoom with such a prime lenses' amazing image quality!
So, if you can accept the limits of a prime lens and it's price level, I can highly recommend you this 300 mm tele.
Description of Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Specifications Type: Super-telephoto Construction: 15 elements in 11 groups (UD glass in G2, G5) View of Angle: 8 degrees 15' Aperture Range: f/4-f/32 Closest Focusing Distance: 4.9 ft. (1.5 m) Shooting Distance Range: 4.9/11.5 ft. (1.5 m/3.5 m) to infinity Filter Size: 77mm Function: AF, AE operation, Auto Aperture, Full Aperture Metering, Manual Focus also possible IS Max Correctable Angle: +/-0.5 degrees (at infinity) IS Function: Stabilizer Mode 1 (bidirectional image stabilization); Stabilizer Mode 2 (unidirectional image stabilization) AF System: Rear-group focusing, with Ultrasonic Motor (USM) Diaphragm: Pulse control system using Electromagnetic Diaphragm (EMD) Coating: Super Spectra Dimensions: 3.5 diameter x 8.7 length (90mm x 221mm) Weight: 42.3 oz (1.2 kg) Lens Hood: Built-in (Locks when pulled out) Compact L-series telephoto lens with an Image Stabilizer which compensates for camera shake with the equivalent effect of a shutter speed two stops faster. Two Image Stabilizer modes are provided: Stabilizer Mode 1 (the same mode featured on the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM) and the new Stabilizer Mode 2 which steadies the image during horizontal or vertical panning. Mode 2 detects the panning direction automatically. The closest focusing distance is 4.9 feet (1.5 m).Accessories
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