very happy with my new Canon 300mm F4 IS

[darrenm]

earlier in the week my Canon 300mm F4 arrived from Simply Electronics and very, very fast after i had placed the order and after playing about with it in the garden the last two days realised it is a superb bit of kit and just the thing i have been looking for.

I had bought it with the intention of using it for birds in flight shots and insects and flowers later in the year after taking advice from a friend. I have also tried my Kenko Eos.EF 1x4 and 2x converters on it on my 7D and very happy with the results and happy it retained auto focus with both when tried in reasonable light conditions but have found the 1x4 is slightly sharper hand held. I dont mind using my 400 f5.6 without auto focus but felt that Canon had left something out with its design and without IS at times found it could be a bit hit and miss.

Ok it is a bit heavier than my 400 F5.6 but it seems a bit sharper all round and it retains auto focus with my converters and now hopefully this will mean on cutting down the amount of kit i have taking out with me when in the field. and not flare the shoulder injury up i have had since Christmas.

Overall it seems to be a very good all round lens which will hopefully cover a lot of my photographic needs and still allow me to travel light whilst on foot.

I nearly went for the Sigma 150-500mm but now happy i didnt.

Does anyone else use the Canon 300mm F4 and what are their views on it.

Now realise this should have been posted in the equipment section and sorry for the mistake

[nutmeg]

I have it and rate it very highly. Very sharp. I've not got any converters so can't comment on how it performs with these. It's a weight I can manage to lug around and can hand hold fine (as long as I don't need to hold it up for too long!).

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by darrenm

earlier in the week my Canon 300mm F4 arrived from Simply Electronics and very, very fast after i had placed the order

Very interesting in the light of the many negative reports for this company on the 'net.

Jim

[darrenm]

Hi Jim it took under a week to arrive from start to finish and i consider that very good seeing that i have ordered stuff of other companies in the past and they have taken longer even with supposed next day delivery charges on top. Simply Electronics do not charge for postage over a certain price and the product was delivered to my door by a courrier service which i had to sign for when it arrived. Overall i am very impressed with both product and the service of the supplying company.

[cosmicma]

i have the non is 300mm f4 L and i have to say it's a fantastic lens

used with the canon 1.4 teleconverter it's hard to tell the difference in image quality

i think your gonna like your new purchase

[glsammy]

I had one, together with a Kenko pro 300 1.4xTC. I couldn't fault the image quality. Lovely sharp images either with or without the extender.
However, I wasn't happy with the AF speed with the TC or indeed with the IS. I found it slowed the continuous shooting rate too much for my liking so I ended up switching it off.
I sold mine and got the 400mm F5.6 L which I've found to be just as sharp with a much better AF performance.
It all depends on the likely use. The 300mm will make an ideal small insect lens for butterflies or darters with its close focusing performance and of course adding the TC will only make that better.
One thing is certain, it's a superb optical lens. You can't get any others that will give a sharper image anywhere near its price range.

[slimrbp]

Congratulations on your new lens, a fine choic.
A quick note regarding teleconverters I had nothing but trouble with th me Kenko. The image quality was fine but the IS on the lens would bounce when getting AF lock and also when pressing the shutter at narrower apertures.
Theses problems all went away with the purchase of a Canon extender.

[darrenm]

Thinking of adding a Canon 1.4x converter to my kit but dont know which and there seems to be a couple of versions/mks out there at present. Will buying one of these help to create more pin sharp images

[slimrbp]

Originally Posted by darrenm

Thinking of adding a Canon 1.4x converter to my kit but dont know which and there seems to be a couple of versions/mks out there at present. Will buying one of these help to create more pin sharp images

I personally don't think so, image quality wasn't an issue with the Kenko just the issues I described.
Mine is an extender mk II, in my opinion the new extender mk IIIs are a wee bit pricey!

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by slimrbp

I personally don't think so, image quality wasn't an issue with the Kenko just the issues I described.
Mine is an extender mk II, in my opinion the new extender mk IIIs are a wee bit pricey!

And from what I've seen not much better. They're supposed to have extra electronics to match their wonderful new range of lenses.This site has tested them on all compatible lenses: Canon & Nikon Digital SLR Camera & Lens Reviews

When looking at the results, always remember these are crops at 100%. I find some of their results bare no comparison with real world images. Take my Sigma 50-500mm as an example. If you look at the results for that lens you'd think every shot you got would look like it was taken on a foggy day I can assure you they don't!