L like Luxury

From yesterday I’m a happy owner of a new L class lens… It’s Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM. I had to say that i like it. I’ve spent many nights in comparing different lens, which could be the successor of my old Canon 75-300 1/4-5.6 IS USM. I’ve had many options. Especially i was thinking about Tamron SP AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD (IF), this lens has a great photo quality almost as good as Canon L class lens, and it’s very bright with light 2.8, however it has also disadvantages like: worse build quality, slow and loud AF (no Ultrasound Motor – USM) and what’s more i saw in tests that AF misses in about 14% of cases in laboratory conditions, where Canon L 70-200 mises in about 4% of cases. Tempting was to have a great lens with f/2.8 just adding a little money, but i decided to not to have problems with compatibility and AF. I was cosidering also version of Canon 70-200 f/4L IS with Image Stabilizer, but this model is too expensive – you have to pay almost twice as much as for basic model. Another model which i considered is Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM, but the size and weight of this lens is unacceptable. I imagined myself with such lens, and probably it would spend most of it’s time on the shelf…

So, finally i bought the cheapest and the most simple version but simultaneously the lightest of Canon L class telezoom. At first look when comparing characteristics, this model is worse than my old Canon Lens 70-300 IS, less focus length (f.l. 70-200 to 70-300),the light almost the same (4 to 4-5.6), no Image Stabilizer, but believe me – this lens L Class is really Mercedes among the telezooms in spite of small size, small hole (light only 4) – but advantages of this lens are really significant: great build quality – metal body no moving parts outside, great and big rubber parts for zoom and focusing, great silent and almost perfect USM Autofocus – really there is no point to compare old Canon lens to that – and what’s more – all time focusing… The only lacking gadget is IS – but old lens had first version of IS and it let only to take photos about 2 stops lower, and I’m not convinced by effects of this IS in old lens. Yes IS in new lens would be an useful addition, however price for that version was just too high…

Okay, let me show some shots of my new Toy. Quality of those photos maybe is not so good because i took them about 1 a.m. with Canon 350D with Kit Lens with Fox macro filter +10 dioptres at ISO 1600 in poor light conditions… Later I’ll show you first gallery of photos taken by this L-Telezoom but right now i can say you that I really love the colors of photos from this lens and the AF speed and accuracy…

And here you can see some of the test photos of the new L-Class Lens…

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

First photos from the Canon 70-200 f/4 L

Full gallery is here:

2008-10-26 Test of L-telezoom