Review on Canon 100 400Mm 4 5 5 6L USM International by Minoru Koshida ᠌

Name: Canon 100 400Mm 4 5 5 6L USM International
Item: Canon 100 400Mm 4 5 5 6L USM International
Rating: 5

October 16, 2022

The perfect product for any user!

I always loved televisions, before the subject there were Canon 70-200 f / 4L IS, Tamron 150-600mm G1, then Canon 300mm f / 4L IS.
70-200 is a good thing, but the focal length is clearly not enough, that's all. Tamron significantly loses in sharpness and HA sabzh, and it is also huge, walking down the street with such an obvious bust. The Canon 300 in the picture is better than the Tamron, it is small, convenient, the lens hood is generally beyond any competition, but its AF speed is too small, as well as a weak stabilizer, all the same, the lens is old and time takes its toll, technology has run ahead. But the subject takes all the best from them and gets rid of all the worst :) I will especially highlight the sharpness and autofocus, they are great!

I tried to compare the subject with the Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II + Canon x2 III teleconverter. The result was in favor of the subject, the sharpness and HA on the test frames were definitely higher, the AF speed was also higher.

Recently, when thoughts arose to switch to the Sony system (it's fashionable now =)), the question arose of how to replace the subject, because it cannot work normally through the adapter on Sonya, AF becomes completely non-existent (checked). So the only contender who was satisfied in quality (but still a little short of the subject in XA) was the subject's twin brother - Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5–5.6 GM OSS. But its price and availability left much to be desired, so it was decided to postpone the idea of ​​changing the system.

I shoot living creatures, mostly birds, I shoot astrophoto, I even shoot a landscape (this is all a subject). In astrophoto (the most demanding genre for optics), the sharpness and the absence of HA throughout the entire field of the frame are especially clearly visible.
If this lens is on your list of contenders for purchase, then feel free to brush aside all the others and take it. But if you don't need fast AF, high sharpness and relatively compact size, then you can look at something else.
P / S I can’t understand why the subject has a total score of 4.5 points, because all the marks he has are fives.
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Pros

1. Sharpness, it's just phenomenal! Across the entire field of the frame at all focal lengths. It is especially good from 200mm and above, and at the very end, as is often the case with televisions, the sharpness hardly changes. Naturally, there is no question of any cover of the diaphragm, everything is open. For example, on the Tamron 150-600mm G1, the already dark 6.3 had to be covered up to 8, so that at least the center of the frame was relatively sharp (by 600mm). 2. Focus is lightning fast! After the Canon 300mm f/4L IS, it's just instantaneous. 3. The stabilizer is effective, four-stage, with three modes of operation. 4. The minimum focusing distance is slightly less than a meter. For a focal length of 400mm, this is very cool, you can shoot almost macro =) 5. Size. After Tamron 150-600mm G1, it generally seems pocket-sized. 6. A handy thing - a ring that changes the style of focusing, in the soft version it turns the lens into a trumpet (the owners of the first version of this lens will like it), in the hard version, focusing is classical - by rotating around the axis. 7. Convenient lens hood with a button, twists and turns like clockwork, clearly and smoothly. 8. Removable foot. Sometimes it is a very handy feature.

Cons

At this price, they just don't exist. And they are not there because this lens simply does not have a competitor, with its characteristics, in its niche, with its price, there is nothing. I came up with one - clinging to clothes, the lid in the hood periodically opens, which, to adjust the polarizers, would latch there.