Saturday 15 November 2014

Canon News: EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

One of Canon's most versatile L-series zoom lenses, covering the 100-400mm range, which was well overdue a replacement (it's 16 years old!), has at last been replaced with a new model:

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

It's a completely new design, and loses the instantly recognisable 'push/pull' zoom, to a more traditional rotating ring - much better!

The relatively slow maximum aperture range of f/4.5-5.6 has always put me off for use for wildlife photography, where low light is frequently a challenge.  This problem will be partly offset with a much improved image stabilisation (IS), which offers 4 stops, but off course the shallow depth of field will still be elusive.

Another neat new feature is a new lens hood, the ET-83D.  This has a 'side access window', which means you can adjust polarising filters, whilst leaving the hood on.

Much more technical information is available here.