When I started looking at the idea of getting a good long lens, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get one of Canon’s long primes. I’d looked at the longer Sigma zooms, but reviews almost always mentioned that the stabilization was quirky (not as good as Canon’s) and that AF speed wasn’t great. Invariably these lenses were compared to Canon’s 100-400 and they often fared well, but never seemed to come out on top. They were all cheaper (except for the 100-300 f/2.8…) but I knew that I’d end up wondering about that 100-400.

I was just about ready to get the 100-400 when I thought: “Hey, Canon has an excellent 70-200 f/2.8 that could be a 140-400 f/2.5 with Canon’s 2x teleconverter!” That would give me the excellent 70-200 f/2.8 lens that could double as a long lens. I’d be getting 2 lenses for the price of… well… 2 or so lenses…

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d had this idea and a bit of Googling for “canon 70-200 vs 100-400” was very enlightening: If I wanted the best quality at 400mm I should go with the 100-400.

So I did.

My first ‘White Lens’.

Cool.

My first impression of unboxing the lens was ‘nice case’. The lens comes with a very nice white soft-sided lens case. Naturally a hard-sided case would provide better protection, but then again what can you expect from a lens that I paid… oh wait… yeah, a nicer case would probably be more appropriate. The lens does include a nice hood and tripod foot. When you attach the lens to the 40D, you get a pretty hefty piece of equipment. I expect that the lens foot will come in handy.

When I removed my 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM lens I noticed that the 100-400 lacks the lens-camera gasket that the 24-105 has. Weather sealing is very nice and I really appreciated it when we went through Antelope Canyon.

In playing with the lens a bit, I noticed that the focus limiter switch is definitely useful (shortens focus time considerably). Focus time is good and very quiet. It isn’t as fast as the 24-105, but it is moving more glass and is more than adequate. IS works well and feels every bit as solid as my other lenses.

I’d read about the lens being a dust sucker and I can see how that could happen. When you zoom from far to near, you can feel the air move. Of course I don’t expect that I’ll be doing that kind of zooming much in real life.

Someday soon I’ll actually get to look at some shots from this new piece of glass.

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