Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

Name: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Brand: Canon
Rating: 8.6 (34 reviews)

Tweet Share

Lens Reviews / Canon Lenses i Lab tested

Navigate Review Jump to review page...

Navigate Review Jump to review page...
Lens Review
Specifications

100-400mm	$1,224 average price

Lab Test Results

Sub-frame
Full-frame

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

Your purchases support this site

Buy the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

(From Canon lens literature) L-series super telephoto zoom lens equipped with an Image Stabilizer. The fluorite and Super UD-glass elements largely eliminate secondary spectrum. The floating system also ensures high picture quality at all focal lengths. The Image Stabilizer has two modes and it is compatible with Extenders 1.4x II and 2x II.

SLRgear Review
April 2, 2008
by Andrew Alexander

The Canon 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 IS USM telephoto zoom lens was released in September 1998. The lens uses an older ''push-pull'' zoom design that extends the lens from its length of 189mm (7.4'') to almost 260mm (10.2'') when set to its most telephoto setting of 400mm. Incorporating both image stabilization and an ultra-sonic motor into the lens makes for a very compact and efficient package, weighing in at just 1,380g (just over 3 pounds).

The lens is fully compatible with full-frame sensors and film bodies, so there are no issues with vignetting. Canon digital SLR cameras with sub-frame sensors have a ''crop factor'' of 1.6x. Thus, for this particular lens, it will exhibit an effective focal length of 160mm to a whopping 640mm. It can also mount 1.4x and 2x extenders, meaning that you could see a potential of 1,280mm, if you're amenable to a maximum aperture of f/11 at that focal length.

This L-series lens isn't a ''constant'' lens, in that as you increase the focal length, both the maximum and minimum aperture sizes decrease. The following table reflects the change in aperture with focal length:

Focal Length	100-135mm	135-300mm	300-400mm
Largest aperture	ƒ/4.5	ƒ/5	ƒ/5.6
Smallest aperture	ƒ/32	ƒ/36	ƒ/40

The Canon 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 is currently available with an average retail price of around $1,400. The lens takes 77mm filters, and an ET-83 lens hood is included.

Sharpness
The 100-400mm is quite sharp, however, it is not consistently sharp between focal lengths and apertures. Its best results are seen at either 100-135mm and ƒ/8, or 300mm and ƒ/11; some slight corner softness is introduced at 200mm, and 400mm is generally slightly less sharp across the whole frame. At ƒ/8-ƒ/11, we're picking hairs; sharpness doesn't exceed 2 blur units, which we consider to be extremely good performance.

As one of the less expensive ways to get to 400mm, it is compelling to think that this is one of the primary focal lengths for which the lens will be used. Maximum aperture is ƒ/5.6 for 400m, and when set to this aperture, blur is approaching 4 units in the bottom right, and 2 units in the top right. This improves but one unit when stopping down to ƒ/8 (but is still de-centered); at ƒ/11-ƒ/16, sharpness is flat at 2 units across the frame. Diffraction limiting sets in at the extremes, ƒ/32-40, where images are consistently soft regardless of the focal length.

The story on full-frame is equally compelling, and there aren't any surprising results, which is a testament to the lens' design. Some lenses perform very well on digital, where the sub-frame sensor is focusing on the sweet spot of the glass, but full-frame, the extreme edges of the glass show poor results for sharpness. This isn't the case here; corner sharpness is consistently good, even on full-frame.

All in all, excellent results, what we've come to expect from an L-series lens, with some exceptions worth noting.

Chromatic Aberration
The 100-400mm shows excellent resistance to chromatic aberration, with its ''worst'' results showing at 100mm on our EOS-20D: 3/100ths of a percent of frame height on average, and just over 6/100ths of a percent of frame height in the corners. Zooming in to 200-300mm and these results virtually disappear to almost negligible levels, however, they reappear by 400mm. Chromatic aberration is just slightly more prevalent at smaller apertures than larger ones.

On a full-frame body (in our case, the 5D), the results are slightly better, owing to the larger pixels on the full-frame sensor, but the trend is the same: very little to speak of at 200-300mm, and less than you would expect at 100mm or 400mm.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Mounted on a sub-frame sensor, corner darkening is very difficult to detect, at less than a quarter-stop when the aperture is set to its widest and the focal length is set to 100mm. Anything greater than this, and it is virtually undetectable.

On a full-frame sensor body (or a film body), corner darkness is present, but not extraordinary. At any aperture wider than ƒ/8 (ie., ƒ/4.5 or ƒ/5.6) and you're looking at anywhere from a quarter-stop to three-quarters of a stop of corner darkness. It's only by ƒ/11 that you get consistently less than one-quarter of a stop more darkness in the corners than in the center.

Distortion
The 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 IS USM is optimized extremely well against distortion. On a subframe body like our 20D, distortion is statistically negligible at 100mm. As the focal length increases there is some slight pincushion distortion that doesn't exceed -0.2%, visible in the corners. This is matched by negligible barrel distortion on average throughout the image, though I think you would have to look extremely hard and close to see it.

As you might expect, mounting the lens on a full-frame body exaggerates distortion results, but still, distortion isn't remarkably severe. Distortion is still negligible at 100mm, and increases as the lens approaches 400mm, where pincushion distortion reaches -0.5% in the corners, and a generalized 0.2% barrel distortion is present in the image.

Autofocus Operation
Considering the lens is an L-series with USM, we were left with the feeling that other USM-enabled lenses focus much faster. This may be a result of older technology, plus the sheer amount of glass that has to be moved. To increase focusing efficiency, the 100-400mm is equipped with a focus limiter, allowing you to set the focusing range from 1.8m to infinity, 6.5m to infinity, or the whole range (unlimited). The lens provides an option to disable autofocus (AF/MF switch). As a USM lens, autofocus is virtually silent, and you can override autofocus results at any time by just turning the focus ring.

Macro
This isn't a lens you'll turn to for dedicated macro work. With a close-focusing distance of 1.8m (5' 9'') and a magnification ratio of just 0.20x, there are better choices.

Build Quality and Handling
The story of our testing the 100-400mm is a story of sample variation. We went through four copies for evaluation, the first three showing problems which made our test results either impossible or questionable (for example, our first sample had extreme softness in the central region of the image, leading us to believe it had been damaged in shipping). The moral of the story is don't commit to a sale unless you have a chance to test the lens to establish its performance, as in addition to our experience, there are widespread reports of both excellent and poor samples of this lens on the market.

That said, we found this lens to be very solidly build, with a super-rugged feel. The image stabilization makes hand-holding very appealing, but at three pounds, it's obviously quite heavy and one could get tired quite quickly depending on your upper arm strength. This was one of the first, if not the very first, IS lenses from Canon, so its stabilization technology is older and therefore less effective than current models. Image stabilization must be set to either mode 1 and mode 2, and can be activated or deactivated via switches on the lens. Mode 1 is used for vertical and horizontal stabilization, while mode 2 is used solely for vertical stabilization (allowing you to track horizontally-moving subjects). We found we typically got 2-2.5 stops of improvement from it, and then had to put it down and shake out our wrists.

I actually quite like push-pull zoom lens designs, in that you have only one ring to grab: rotating it controls focus, and pushing or pulling it zooms the lens. It can take a little getting used to if this is the first time you've encountered this relatively rare design. As Dave says, "Some swear by it, some swear at it." My only problem with push-pull zoom designs is their tendency to creep. To prevent this, Canon has designed the lens with a ring that lets you adjust tension on the zoom collar. It can take a little fiddling to get it right: too much, and it's hard to zoom quickly; too little, and the zoom will creep. I didn't find it took too much fiddling though, and really liked the ability to adjust zoom tension this way.

As you might expect, attached filters don't rotate during focusing or zooming. The lens is equipped with a distance scale, and the focal lengths are marked along the barrel, visible as the zoom collar is extended.

One important note for digital shooters: the barrel of this zoom moves in and out a lot while zooming. When combined with its large diameter, this means there's a lot of air (and dust) moving in and out of the back part of the lens and the mirror box of the camera it's attached to. It's definitely not dust-sealed, so it may not be the best choice for digital shooters in the middle of a dust storm.

Alternatives

Canon EF 400mm ƒ/4 DO IS USM ~$5,200
This is the obvious comparable - does the prime version of this lens outshine the zoom version? At such a huge price differential, you would certainly think so, and field reports seem to agree. In addition to the price increase, it's a full pound heavier and much more bulky.

Sigma 80-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 EX DG OS APO ~$950
We haven't tested Sigma's competitor, but with a comparable range of focal lengths and image stabilization, the only thing missing is Sigma's HSM for silent focusing.

Sigma 120-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM APO ~$?
One of Sigma's latest releases, it isn't yet (at time of writing) available for purchase and there is no pricing information, but it is much more directly comparable to the Canon 100-400mm, with both image stabilization and silent focusing (HSM).

Tokina 80-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 AT-X 840 AF D ~$600
An older and less expensive choice, the Tokina 80-400mm is screw-driven and isn't image-stabilized, but if you're after the focal range rather than technology, this is a lens to consider.

Conclusion
It's not surprising to hear people swear by this lens: in 1998, there wouldn't have been much else in the price range that would have been as sharp. The push-pull design doesn't appeal to everyone for a variety of reasons, but it's hard to deny the lens' obvious versatility. The only deciding factor in a purchase of this lens would be the quality of the sample you're considering, as we mentioned previously, this is a lens that seems to have a fairly high sample inconsistency, so you should try and make sure you can return the lens if you're not happy with the results you're getting. That said, if you can find a good copy, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.