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Filed under: Lenses •

A look at the Canon 70-300 f4-5.6 L IS

A few days ago I began to take a closer look at some of Canon’s newly announced lenses.  Starting off with the 8-15mm f4 L and now moving on to another totally new lens for the Canon L series lineup.  The 70-300 f4-5.6 L IS zoom.  A lens that offers a larger than normal zoom range in a small, weather sealed package with the latest image stabilization.

Canon 70-300 f4-5.6 L IS

Lens technology has been steadily improving over the last ten years, not at the pace that the cameras are advancing, but improving nonetheless.  Prime lenses used to stand in a class of their own against zoom lenses but whilst it is true that they are still leagues ahead in the image quality stakes, there are now some zooms out there that do a truly remarkable job of keeping up.  Last year Canon announced the 70-200 f2.8 L IS II and it was one such lens.  The golden rule with zoom lenses is that the greater zoom range you squeeze into a lens, the poorer the image quality becomes…. or at least that used to be the case.  But recently lens manufacturers have been pushing the boundaries of that you can squeeze into one lens.  Just last month Nikon announced the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S and Sigma released a 70-300mm F4-5.6 DG OS. Longer zoom ranges have been squeezed into lenses before but rarely in lenses that were designed to be used by professional or semi-professional photographers.

There already exists two other 70-300mm lenses in Canon’s lineup but the 70-300mm DO (diffractive optics) lens never received good reviews and whilst the lower priced 70-300 is a good lens for hobbyist usage it would not stand up to the demands of professional usage.  With the new L series 70-300mm then, Canon aims to offer a decent zoom range in a solid body with weather sealing and 4-stop image stabilization.  Nature and travel photographers who value weigh saving in their equipment might be especially tempted by this lens as it would negate the need to carry either of the much heavier 300mm prime lenses that are available.  Personally I am also interested in this lens because I often ski or snowboard all day with my equipment.  I currently also carry a 300mm prime lens on days that permit it, but other more intensive days of hiking, climbing and skiing force me to leave the 300mm behind and just carry the 70-200 for the longer shots.  Having a good quality weather sealed lens that zooms to 300mm is very appealing.  For outdoor work the slow f5.6 aperture is not likely to be too much of a concern for me.

Incidentally, as the f-stop varies through the zoom range I did some research and tracked down the information on how the aperture changes with focal length.

70-100mm f4

101-135 f4.5

136-200 f5.0

201-300 f5.6

Whilst it would have been nice to see the f4 aperture available right up to 200mm, it probably would have impacted the size and weight of the lens and that is an important factor in the design.  Whilst it does weigh in at 1050g , that is still 450g lighter than the 70-200 f2.8 and only 250g heavier than the 70-200 f4 L IS.  It has a 67mm filter thread similar to the 70-200 f4 L IS, but the lens barrel actually has a diameter the same as the f2.8 IS lens.  Basically it fits right in between those two 70-200 zooms in terms of weight and bulk in your camera bag.  The main design difference though is that this lens extends as you zoom, unlike the 70-200s.  I do wander about the effectiveness of the weather sealing in the area that extends.  It seems to me that if that area got wet and then retracted into itself that could draw moisture in.  But as they say, innocent until proved guilty so we’ll have to wait until we can get our hands on this lens for further examination.  One thing that occurred to me is that this lens will not work with underwater camera housings used by surf photographers and marine photographers due to the extension during zooming.  For the underwater housings to be effective , the lens must always sit right up against the front of the lens housing.  Of course this will not effect that many people but given that I am an adventure sports photographer it is something I am thinking about too as I may be purchasing a water housing in the future!

This lens is expected to hit the shelves in October for the reasonable MSRP of $1400.  List price will likely be well under this price and if the lens produces the type of quality images we are used to seeing from L lenses then it will be something of a good deal, and likely to entice a fair few amateur photogs to pick up their first L lens.  Most people seem to be looking at this lens or the 70-200 f4 L IS because they are both in the same price range.  I own the f4 L IS myself so when I get hold of the 70-300 L you can expect a comparison to follow on this site!

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