CANON EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6l

Completely redesigned, this lens has a lot to offer

Canon’s original EF 100-400mm IS lens was somewhat notorious for its trombone-style, push-pull zoom mechanism. That’s history now, replaced by a more conventional twist-action zoom ring in the recently launched Mk II edition. However, it retains the variable friction damper from the original design, which helps to avoid accidental zooming while panning, and can stop zoom creep when tripod-mounted.

The lens has an almost identical variable aperture range as the Canon 70-300mm lens (left), but adds an extra 100mm of telephoto reach. The trade-off is that it’s substantially larger, and more than 50 per cent heavier at 1.64kg. It also costs about twice as much as two of the Sigma and Tamron lenses in the group, while losing out to their greater 600mm reach.

Weather-sealed and robust, this L-series lens has excellent build quality. Top-grade glass includes fluorite and Super UD elements. The four-stop image stabilizer features the usual static and panning modes, but also adds a third mode in which stabilization is only applied during exposures.

Performance

Autofocus is fractionally faster than in the Canon 70-300mm but there’s very little in it. Sharpness and contrast are similarly impressive in both lenses, although sharpness from the 100-400mm drops off a little more at its longer maximum zoom setting. Resistance to ghosting and flare is also very good, aided by Canon’s new ASC coating.