Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens
Pros:
Stunning picture quality, very sharp, excellent in low light
Cons:
Price: not for the faint-walleted!
The Bottom Line:
If you can afford it, buy it!
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
When you consider buying a lens of this price, you are clearly serious about your photography so I'll forget the small talk and get down to business....
This lens is truly astounding in its quality but what are you getting for all this money? Well, the build quality is second to none, absolutely solid with full weather sealing throughout which means once you own this lens, you will own this lens for life.... so will your children's grandchildren!
Autofocus is very fast, very nearly silent and extremely accurate, even in low light due to its wide f2.8 aperture. Let's face it, if you are buying this lens, THAT is what you are buying it for. If not, you would be buying the 300mm f4 L series for a third of the price! It's ability to lock on to an animal in the pre-season dawn is remarkable: I captured a beautiful fox returning to its home after a night scavenging. It had an almost copper coloured coat and the early light was as read as I've seen so this fox almost looked on fire. I locked on, shot a few frames and then previewed: I couldn't wait to get home to send them off to a wildlife magazine I knew would want them. Every hair on the foxes coat was defined, the colours sumptuous, the focus perfect. Background bokeh was stunning, really creamy smooth making the fox really leap out of the picture at you.
By the way, I was a good 50 yards away at the time!
This lens will couple perfectly with either of the Canon tele-converters but personally I stick to using it with my 1.4x though the occasional shot has been taken with the 2x TC, mainly of birds that I couldn't get close to in any other way. But even with the 2x, I was effectively using a 600mm L series f5.6 lens and that gives you top notch detail no matter what. You can even still retain AF at that aperture!
Chromatic aberration might as well not be in the dictionary for all you'll care with this lens: it simply doesn't exist to an extent worth writing about! The sharpness is perfect at the mid apertures but still superbly sharp even down at f2.8 and f4 where only a very discerning eye would ever notice any softening even if technical charts using complicated equipment somehow detects some. With my naked eye I can't see any worth considering.
So, is this lens worth the money? Of course it is. If you are considering this lens you are either a professional or a very serious amateur so you know already what it's capable of. The pictures you will get from this will have grown men with lesser lenses weeping into their lens cloths!
