Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras: Customer Reviews & Product Details

OK I own the 400 5.6L 30D&50D The 400 5.6 works great On the 30D But give me alot of problems on the 50D I read alot of reviews message boards and looked at thousands of images and setups and the deeper I got into the 50D+EF 300 4.0L IS setup the more I Liked it well I took the chance and Bought this lens and OMG this combo was made 4 each other this lens is like having a whole new world; sharpness; color; clarity;Bokeh; I mean so easy to use
and im so happy with the turnaround of images that are great!!! I dont care what lens you use in low light and with a converter its gonna hunt more and i have read that the IS is clunky and loud This Lens I got Feb. 16 2010 Is really pretty smooth fast and quiet I love it!! it works well very well on both my cameras! Each to his own I guess But This little lens Is fine with me! Now I Could pay 5 or 6 thousand and not be happy or spend 1300 and be very happy!!!
Really This is a Very Good Lens!! I personally love mine!! L's to ya folks its prime time!

I bought this because I sometimes need greater reach than provided by my 70-200 f4 L. It's a very sharp lens, and because of its relatively light weight and IS I've been able to get some stunning shots hand-holding it when a tripod is not practical.
The only negative I've noticed is that the IS is noisy when it first kicks in, but other than sounding a bit like 'elves moving furniture around' (not my words, but apt), it's not a problem.
There is no doubt that the 2.8 version is a sharper lens - it's a legend in its own time. But I don't make a living from this so I really can't justify the extra $3,000.00.
I haven't had any problems with focusing - it's fast and accurate. This is a great lens and well worth the money.

Update 2/13/10 - Although I have gotten some stunning shots with this lens, I began to get the feeling that it was inconsistent. Finally, one day I was photographing landing aircraft near Kennedy Airport. I started out with this lens, realized it was too long, and switched to my 70-210. When I got home I compared the shots and almost every shot with the 300mm was soft whereas the 70-210 was right on. I've sent it back to Canon for calibration, and they responded that it does need repair. Haven't gotten it back yet but I'll update again when I do. I'm not at all turned off to this lens, and I'm looking forward go seeing the results after Canon is done with it.

This is my first lens longer then 135mm in focal length and with IS feature. I am not a professional, but just take pictures for family occasions.

Before I got this lens, I could not understand why people always like to have IS (or equivalent) for telephoto lenses and only believed safety shutter speed and tripod. But after I received this lens, I realized that neither of them is really applicable. First of all, with telephone, the shutter speed drops a lot. It's not easy to maintain the minimum shutter speed, even in outdoor. Secondly, the field of view is much narrower, a tripod will not help on following fast moving object. The IS really provides a solution to those problems. With its superb optics, I ever got a clear shot at 1/50(of course, the object was not moving). Its performance is way beyond my expectation.

Before I ordered it, I also read lots of reviews. Some reviews mentioned that its AF speed is not fast. The fact is that it depends on light condition. In low light, its AF is really really slow. But when in the outdoor and it's bright, the AF is super fast. I don't see it any slower then my any other EF lenses. The difference is so noticeable and significant, but I think it's because of its long focal length.

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.

It is hard to imagine the f2.8 version being superior in most shooting conditions. The fact this lens is so much lighter & portable you open up a whole vista of angles very quickly due to hand holding vs the monopod dependent big brother version. Sharpness & color saturation is excellent. I have used this lens in extreme light deprived situations..e.g.,amphitheatre after dark shooting 200+ feet from subjects on a concession building rooftop. Could quickly pan the stage from either side. The image stabilizer was great. With a good brace 1/20-30 of a second is possible. With a full frame sensor camera at high ISO you get great results from this little gem.

Sports photography? Are you kidding me? This is a great lens. I took shots from the upper deck/40 yard line at the University Of Tennessee/Neyland Stadium with my canon rebel XT...even from that vantage point you can crop down & see the eyes/ expressions of the players @ midfield during the coin toss.

Why leave the collar on? For me at least it aids in helping with a more steady brace while hand holding. The bottom part of the collar is flat & helps to balance/acts as a fulcrum to balance the body & lens.