Better Available Light Digital Photography : How to Make the Most of Your Night and Low-light Shots

(Frankie) #1
Fast lenses 125

Quinta Real is a small 94-room
hotel nestled into the side of
the cliffs on Acapulco’s Diamante
beach area. This shot demon-
strates the versatility of the
focal-length range of Canon’s
EF 70–200 mm f/4L IS USM
lens. Exposure was 1/800 sec at
f/11 at ISO 200. Focal length was
127 mm. © 2006 Joe Farace.


was again attached to a Canon EOS 5D with BG-E4 battery
pack, and formed a well-balanced, easy-handling package. The
lens, although light in weight, is no lightweight, and is obviously
built to the rugged pro-level standards we’ve come to expect
from L-series lenses.

The EF 70–200 mm f/4 L IS USM lens is the same size as the
EF 70–200 mm f/4 L USM lens, but the new lens incorporates
a circular diaphragm for more-natural-looking background blur
(bokeh) and provides distance information for improved AF and
exposure with Canon’s EX fl ash units. The lens controls fl are
and ghosting with coatings and optimal placement of 20 lens
elements in 15 groups. One fl uorite element and two UD (ultralow
dispersion) elements suppress chromatic aberrations for crisp
images throughout the focal range. A ring-type Ultrasonic Motor
(USM) provides fast and quiet autofocusing, and a full-time
manual focus even when the lens is set for AF. Ads that we’ve
seen for this lens show that it comes with only front and rear
lens caps, but Canon tells me the ET-74 lens hood is included
standard.
The EF 70–200 mm f/4 L IS USM zoom provides two different
image-stabilization modes. Mode 1 is for photographing station-
ary subjects under dim light, but I also found it useful shooting
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