2013-02-12T19:00:00
Rated 5 out of 5
Great lens
I use this lens for wildlife photography. Beautiful Bokeh.
MICHAEL D.
2013-01-23T19:00:00
Rated 5 out of 5
Excellent and Portable Telephoto Lens
I use this lens for wildlife photography and as my review headline states this lens is portable and excellent. The automatic focus is fast and accurate. The images are sharp at f/4. I prefer to shot at f/5.6 when possible. It is more forgiving and gives me a higher percentage of in focus images.
I did my comparisons between the 400 f/4, and my 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM and 70-200 f/4L IS USM with the 1.4x EF III Teleconverter mounted to the 70-200's on my 5D MK lll. As many of you know the 70-200 f/4L with the 1.4x III converter is tack sharp with beautiful color and it was the best of the three. The pleasant surprise was the close second with the 70-200 f/2.8L IS or the 400 f/4. The 400 f/4 delivers excellent sharpness and color. In conjunction with its relatively light weight and fast accurate autofocus this makes for a great 400mm telephoto field lens.
The field kit I put together is the 400 f/4 DO with the Canon T3i (600D) having a form factor of 1.6. This results in a 640mm lens and camera body weighing in at about 5.42 lb. This allows me to carry the lens and get some great hand held shots. When I get tired a monopod is perfect and keeps me going. The image quality remains excellent with this kit. By the way just to throw some numbers around if I add my 1.4x III Teleconverter to the mix I end up with 896mm of reach and the overall image quality is very good.
One last comment. I have read other reviews expressing concern about this lens having a lack of contrast. I can only say that every current digital Canon EOS camera body is internally adjustable by sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color. Any refinements an image may need out of the camera can be quickly accomplished in post processing. Don't give this a second thought.
I have been an L glass shooter with all of my Canon bodies (all full frame format) and pained over this decision for years. Don't hesitate to try the Diffractive Optics (DO) glass. It delivers excellent images and you can carry it with you and that means you get the images the guys on the road side or in the parking lot never saw.
JAMES S.
