New spring and lenses

First outing with the new (to me) Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM on a spring walk in an area of outstanding natural beauty AONB. Click on the pix to make them so much bigger.

First impressions:

Superb build quality, as you’d expect from a £1k plus lens, metal everything. I’m always a bit wary of the weatherproofing tag however, Canon dont make any specific claims although obviously it’s not an underwater lens and apparently it needs a filter in place to complete the weatherproofing seal, having said that, I have shot with previous L glass for short periods in the rain without any ill effects.

Fast and quiet AF especially good with the 1D and 7D, the IS is meant to be worth up to 4 stops – although that will take an outing to the beach to verify.

The lens is relatively light lens and very compact, which makes it an ideal travel companion although the white L glass colour means it wont be very discreet. There is no tripod mount collar included in the package which is a shame and slightly annoying as when this lens is on the 7D it has a focal length of 112mm – 480mm and might need it, it also limits the video use of the lens.

Lastly, the image quality is really quite impressive, (especially compared to the EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS that I’ve just traded in) so much so that I had to alter my normal sharpening settings in the raw converter to tone down the over sharpening jaggedness in some parts of the images) Although I think I may have spied some vignetting at the 300mm end (check out the sheep on a hill pic).

More later

Canon 5D with Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM