For the last week I have had the privilege of borrowing a local photographer's 100-400mm lens. Her name is Sarah Goodman and here is her website and facebook page - http://www.penuelphotography.co.uk & http://www.facebook.com/pages/Penuel-the-photography-of-Sara-Goodman/166835363429631.
I've been testing the lens out for later this year when I hope to be filming some nesting birds of prey for my documentary and I thought I would do a review on the lens itself. As always on a canon L lens it has a very good quality image and is well built, there are a few more modes on the lens and interestingly it is one of the few lenses that you don't twist to change the zoom but instead, in a sense push and pull. Below I have covered several topics including size, weight, focusing, stabilizing, test photos and the general features.
I've been testing the lens out for later this year when I hope to be filming some nesting birds of prey for my documentary and I thought I would do a review on the lens itself. As always on a canon L lens it has a very good quality image and is well built, there are a few more modes on the lens and interestingly it is one of the few lenses that you don't twist to change the zoom but instead, in a sense push and pull. Below I have covered several topics including size, weight, focusing, stabilizing, test photos and the general features.
The lens body has all the usual labels from 'Image Stabilizer' 'Ultrasonic', 'Canon' logos and so on... but there is one labeled ring that most may be confused with seeing for the first time. It reads 'smooth to tight' Initially I thought this was to do with how stiff the manual focus ring was although I was wrong. The real explanation however is quite close, It changes the smoothness of changing the focal length. For instance if you were on 400mm and wanted to stay there you would set it to 'tight' so it wouldn't slide into a another focal length - this may be used when videoing for example. If you were on the go, or going for a leisurely walk with the camera you would most likely set it too smooth because the subject will be unpredictable and you may want to change focal lengths quickly. |
Focusing & StabilizingThe Lens has very quick focusing and rightly so as it is an L lens. Although there are a few things to look out for, the minimum focusing distance is 1.8m and it ranges all the way up to infinity. To show the distance the camera is focusing at there is a small screen as such on the top of the lens near the camera (shown left). The lens is capable of auto focusing as well as manual but the real nifty feature is that in auto-focus mode you can also manually focus - just be aware of this as you could accidentally change your focus whilst shooting. To cut down the already fast time of focusing you have a small switch on the side of the lens located underneath AF/MF. It says 1.8m-∞ and 6.5m-∞. Basically if your focusing on far objects pass 6.5m then you can switch to the 6.5m option and the lens doesn't try and auto-focus in the 1.8m-6.5m zone. Stabilizing can be turned on and off although most people prefer to keep it on most if not all the time. However when 'on' there are two modes, 1 & 2. Stabilizer mode 1 the lens will compensate for motion in both horizontal and vertical directions. In mode 2 the lens will only compensate for motion in the vertical direction - you would use this if you were panning with your subject as you took the picture. |
For extra stabilization the lens comes with its own tripod mount - for those of you unfamiliar with this it basically means that instead of using the tripod mount on the bottom of the camera you use the lens' attached tripod mount instead. It is traditionally added to heavy and longer lenses to counter-balance it and reduce shake or blur from the final image. The weight of the camera body acts as the counterbalance - this tripod ring is optional though and can be removed.
Size & Weight
The first thing I have to say in this section is that this is a beast of a lens! It weighs 1.38KG and is has a max length of 18.9cm. Below I have added four pictures in a slide-show where I compare the size of the 100-400mm with the canon 70-300mm (Not the L-lens). I would say that the lens itself has a larger diameter and when getting used to it for the first time you may want a lens hood just because if your not careful you may hit the end of the lens on something. The focusing ring is an average size and because the focal length 'changer' is push and pull I can't compare it to anything but it is smaller than the 'normal' twist switches.
Its clear that although this lens is heavy Canon have done a marvelous job of compacting the weight down considering the ultrasonic focusing and auto-focusing inside it. Part of the 'smaller' size is partly due to the push/pull feature.
Its clear that although this lens is heavy Canon have done a marvelous job of compacting the weight down considering the ultrasonic focusing and auto-focusing inside it. Part of the 'smaller' size is partly due to the push/pull feature.
Other
The first thing I will point out is that the lens cap and filter size are 77mm not the standard 58mm. A lens hood can be bought and the one you want is the ET-83C. When you buy the lens it should arrive not only in good packaging but also comes with a 'free' carry case/ protector that you feel will protect it but I still wouldn't go dropping it! The colour scheme is the standard L-lens 'zebra' patterns to show all fellow photographers you've got some good kit. The specs can be found on the canon website.
Test Pictures
RATED - GOLDI could not personally award this lens any lower. The sharpness is incredible and the lens offers a good range of focal lengths. Quality and vibrancy of the images is just as good as expected with the L-lens series. The only downfall is the price however in L-lens terms it is - dare I say - cheaply priced for the quality of the lens. Since writing this review the new 100-400mm has been brought out but it just consists of an in-built 1.4x teleconverter and at over £11,000 you may as well buy this lens and the teleconverter separately. It is quite a weighty lens and may not be a walk about lens but more tripod and monopod. If you have any questions, either leave them in the comments or contact me through my contact page and I will try my best to give a good an answer as possible. |