SUPERTEST
110 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
FEATURES
VERDICT
01
As well as Super
Spectra coatings,
there’s a fluorine
coating on the
front element.02
The extending black
inner barrel feels a
little down-market.03
An optional tripod
mount ring ‘C (WII)’
costs around
£145/$150.04
There’s a physical
focus distance scale.05
Weather-seals are
fitted throughout,
including a rubber
ring around the
mounting plate.FEATURESBUILD & HANDLINGPERFORMANCEVALUEOVERALLCANON EF 70-300mm
f/4-5.6L IS USM £1199/$1349
This lens brings a touch of luxury to the time-
honoured 70-300mm format
tretching back to the days
RIPPÀOP6/5V
70-300mm lenses have
always been a popular choice.
Something of a novelty, this L-series
lens elevates the 70-300mm zoom to
a loftier position. Indeed, compared
with Canon’s latest super-high-spec
EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM lens,
it’s almost as expensive in the UK
and even pricier in the USA.
At its core, the 70-300mm
L-series lens has the same variable
f/4-5.6 aperture rating as most
other direct competitors. It also
features an extending inner barrel,
so the physical length of the lens
grows as you sweep through the
zoom range. As such, handling
characteristics are almost the
same. Up-market optical highlights
include dual UD elements, plus
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coatings. The four-stop image
stabilizer has physically switchable
static and panning modes. The lens
feels robust and is quite heavy for a
70-300mm zoom, at 1050g. It
comes complete with a hood and a
full set of weather-seals, while a
tripod mount ring is available as an
optional extra. The off-white paintjob further signals the lens’s
aspirations to Canon’s upper
echelon of telephoto optics.Performance
Corner-sharpness at the short end
of the zoom range is noticeably
better than in Canon’s more
budget-oriented 70-300mm IS II
USM lens on test, but centre-
sharpness is slightly less impressive
towards the long end. There’s also
no improvement in control over
colour fringing, distortions nor
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less ultra-fast and more audible.
Overall, the L-series lens struggles
to justify its price tag.S
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Short Mid LongSHARPNESS
THE X FACTOR
Shooting with an APS-C camera boosts reach
hanks to smaller image sensors, APS-C
format cameras have a ‘crop factor’ that
boosts the effective focal length by 1.6x,
compared with full-frames. You could therefore
use a 70-300mm or 100-400mm tele zoom
designed for a full-frame body on your APS-C
format camera and get an effective zoom range of
112-480mm or 160-640mm. That takes you into
super-tele territory, without the need to use a huge,
heavy, and expensive lens.T
300 mm^ full-frame^300 mm^ APS-C^
Mount a telephoto lens on a Canon APS-C camera and you’ll get this much extra reach