Customer Reviews: Read 128 more reviews...
 Quite happy with the lens March 22, 2006
84 out of 86 found this review helpful
After debating between this and the 70-200 L series I decided to purchase this lens. I have been pleasantly surprised by the results. I also own the 17-85 and the 50mm 1.8 lenses and I have found that I have gotten the "most pleasing" results from this lens. The pictures have been very sharp from my 20D - even in the 200mm - 300mm range. I've also been happy with the quality of the bokeh.
The primary drawback I see is that the AF tends to hunt a fair amount when confronted with low contrast images. That being said, I used it for some flying bird shooting at the wildlife refuge and was surprised to see how many of the shots were in sharp focus. However, it was a little bit of all or nothing. Several shots were also wildly out of focus. Since the lens is fairly slow to focus, you never know what you're gonna get with such a fast moving object against the distant sky.
I had much more consistent results when shooting soccer, softball and football in the park. The AF speed did not present an issue for any of these activities and the results were excellent.
I wish the lens were a little less expensive but I the prints I have gotten from my 13 X 19 printer have been worth the extra money.
Impressive lens November 8, 2005
57 out of 58 found this review helpful
I bought this lens as a replacement for the earlier 75-300mm IS lens. I was generally happy with that lens, but it had definite limitations - I needed to shoot at f8 or f11 and bump up the ISO to get a decent shutter speed.
This new version seems sharp at full zoom even wide open, allowing me to use a lower ISO setting. Size is similar to older version, but the IS seems more effective - looking through the lens when it kicks in you can actually see the image become more stable and less shaky. I got this over the Canon 70-200 f4 L because of the extra reach, smaller size (slightly) and the images I've seen from both are very similar.
UPDATE: There have been reports of soft images when using this lens in a verticle orientation - however I have not experienced this on my copy. I'm happy to say that after months of using this lens, I still consider it great.
An Amazing Lens June 29, 2006
47 out of 47 found this review helpful
Just returned from a trip to Hawaii and had the opportunity to put this lens to the test. I was very pleased with the results. This is a powerful lens, yet it is relatively light weight and not burdensome to use. I was able to get some really amazing wild life shots of birds, zooming in from a distance with a hand held camera (Canon EOS 20D) and virtually every shot was a keeper. The IS feature allows you to quickly zoom and compose your shot and fire it off and the image quality is excellent with sharp focus. Usually a lens this size with this much power requires a firm grip and almost always a tripod - not so with this one. I shot in both portrait and landscape mode and I didn't see any problems with focus, clarity or sharpness. All the images were clean and razor sharp. If you are looking for a long lens with the ability to bring in a distant shot without having to use tripods and other equipment, I highly recommend this lens for your arsenal.
Superior Image Stabilizer Telephoto Zoom from Canon May 11, 2006
55 out of 56 found this review helpful
The Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM telephoto zoom lens replaces the first Image Stabilizer lens of its kind, the Canon 75-300mm f4-5.6 telephoto zoom lens. It offers now up to three - as opposed to two - apertures in image stabilizing mode, as well as slightly wider focal length. The current June 2006 Popular Photography issue has a fine test report on this lens, showing that it is capable of excellent contrast and resolution in the range from 70mm to 200mm; at 300mm, both contrast and resolution decline slightly to very good, but still an excellent result for a zoom lens in this class. It is also fully compatible with Canon's digital SLR cameras (112-480mm equivalent), with improved lens coatings optimised for digital sensors. Without question this is an excellent lens for the Canon photographer interested in excellent nature and landscape photography, without resorting to a sturdy tripod to hold both the camera and lens; thus it is also quite suitable for handhold panning shots at most outdoor sporting events held under good weather conditions.
Fast AF, Excellent IS, good sharpness August 1, 2006
41 out of 42 found this review helpful
I bought this lens to replace an EF 100-300mm (USM) that we had from my wife's film shooting days (not a common lens to have, apparently; the 75-300mm seems to be more widespread). That older lens produced some surprisingly good pictures (quite sharp), but handheld shots were hard to get right at long focal lengths.
The image stabilization feature of this lens works remarkably well, but it's quite a bit noisier than that of the EF-S 17-85mm IS (my first IS lens; you hardly hear the IS gyrations at all on that one). The sharpness is quite good (probably a tad better than that of the EF 100-300mm, although it's not a foremost strength of this lens in my opinion). I was surprised by how much faster I can acquire focus with this lens, even though reviews suggested that it still falls short of L-series lenses (see e.g. the "flying gull" shot I uploaded to the "customer images" set).
If you want to shoot hand-held at 150mm+, I don't think this lens has much competition under $1000 for Canon EOS users.
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