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Home >> Digital Camera Accessories >> Lenses
Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras | List Price: $2,000.00
Discount Price: Too low to display
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Brand: Canon
Binding: Electronics
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)
Comparison [Posted on 2007-08-13]
On a 30D and Digital Rebel XT, I tested this lens against my Canon EF70-200mm F/2.8L USM IS with 1.4x extender, and against the EF70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 USM IS lens. I can honestly say, there is a noticeable sharpness and contrast improvement of the 300mm F/4 USM IS lens over the other two configurations. Bokeh is very good with the 300mm lens. I cannot complain. Would the extra $3K be worth it for the F2.8 300mm lens? Only if you make enough money from this field to pay for it AND make some profit. Otherwise, I'd get this lens to fill the position. Then only if it sees an abundance of work would I consider looking at the bigger brother. Selling this one as used and upgrading later would be more like renting it for a cheap price because it holds it's value.
Back to my comparison: The 70-300mm lens was sharper than the 70-200mm w/1.4x wide open, but the results were reversed when stopping these two combinations down. the 70-200 and the 300mm here have better color than the 70-300 zoom I tested. The issue with the 70-200mm w/1.4 extender is, I was unhappy with the bokeh (background blur) using the extender. I'd hate to see how bad this is with the 2x extender. In my opinion, and I admittedly pixel-peep, but if you are wanting to shoot at 300mm, and find yourself zooming as far as you can, this lens will deliver the goods. Everyone else basically says this lens beats the 100-400mm L zoom, and although I've yet to test one of those, I hear that the 100-400mm L zoom is not "L" sharp at anything above 300mm unless you stop it down. However, I understand that the 100-400mm L zoom is sharper at 400mm wide open, than the 300mm L w/1.4 extender. For this point, I'd consider whether you're shooting a cropped sensor or full-frame (I prefer the former, actually--long story)
Would I choose the 400mm non-IS lens? No. I don't know anyone who can shoot at 400mm without a tripod unless the sun is out and light is bright. Even then, I'd still prefer at least a monopod. At 400mm even IS would be limited. Even the 300mm tested here is difficult to hand-hold with IS and nearly impossible without IS. IS makes a tremendous difference, but not having it would require a tripod. I don't always want to carry one.
I took a star off on my review only because I found the AF pretty lousy. It does a great job of what it does (focus), but hunts an awful lot if the background is busy enough. About 20% of the time, I've had to simply disable it. Don't let this scare you away. No, it is sweet when the composition is sparse, or your subject is quite obvious. But if you're shooting birds in a tree, it may hunt.
Noisy IS? My copy seems rather quiet, but it does exhibit little clunks when starting and stopping IS. Honestly, this happens in my more expensive 70-200 L USM IS, and it happens all the time on nearly every car's A/C compressor when it starts and stops every 30 seconds during the summer. It's a normal thing. Maybe Canon will put a clutch in the IS later on, right?
Bottom line, if resolution, contrast, color, and sharpness is what you're after and you don't mind the fact that you don't have zoom, you'll like this lens. the price for what you get is not bad, especially when compared to the faster 300mm L lens Canon offers.
300mm f4 sharp but slow and noisey [Posted on 2007-10-29]
I own the 70-200mm 2.8 IS and didn't have enough reach for birds so I bought the 300mm f4 IS and used it with the 1.4x. I found the images very sharp, but the noise of the IS kicking in is quite noticable and also the focus was slow. My other lens was smooth, quite, and fast compared to the 300, and I was somewhat unhappy about the focus and noise of the lens. Seems like for the price, it would be alot quieter and faster to focus. It does shoot sharp though, and maybe I can live with the other problems..
Great Lens [Posted on 2007-11-06]
Finally! I got this lens and its everything I thought it would be. Sharp! Easy to use and just great!
It's a good lens but... [Posted on 2008-04-02]
Bought the 300 f/4 thought it would be a good addition since it was light and image quality was good.
Got tired of it pretty quick though. F/4 just isn't wide enough for what I wanted to do.
Also as an owner of the 400 f/2.8, I got spoiled because few lenses out there can compete with it.
Sold the lens, bit the bullet and bought the 300 f/2.8.
Now that's a lens that can compete with the 400 f/2.8 in image quality.
Yes the 2.8 is 4x the price of the 4.0, but it's easily 4x the image quality.
It's an L lens. What else do you need to know? [Posted on 2008-09-01]
It's white. It's metal. It's glass. Some electronic stuff in there, too. It is incredible how humans can make these things. Amazing technology. Great stuff. If you can afford it, you know enough about it by now, don't you? Read up, boys. Then buy this one or something like it. But don't ever, ever, buy a piece of garbage plastic lens, and expect it to give you pleasure, as this one does.
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