- EF mount; telephoto zoom lens
- Inner focusing; full-time manual focus
- 100-300mm focal length
- f/4.5-5.6 maximum aperture
- Ring-type UltraSonic Motor (USM)
Product Description
The Canon EF 100-300mm lens completes a fusion of state-of-the-art electronics, mechanical precision, and optical excellence. The fully electronic EF lens mount is unique among 35mm SLR cameras, operating silently and reliably due to the complete elimination of mechanical couplings. It has a custom- designed autofocus motor and microprocessor, and employs ultrasonic motor technology, aspherical lens elements, flourite crystal and ultralow-dispersion glass. The EF 100-300mm is designed for use with all EOS cameras, allows auto and manual focus modes, rear focusing system, and has an affordable price.
Hairong Shi @ 4:58 pm
This lens is very good. Picture is very sharp with 100-200 mm. and it’s perfect for head&body portrait. I love this lens. In 300 mm area you can see softness but it’s not much.
And I compared with 28-105,this one is sharper at 100 than28-105 @105, and it shows much less distortion.
Compared with 75-300mm USM, this one seems sharper than 75-300, with the focus speed almost the same.
Of course, there are other better ones(like 70-200 f2.8L or other fixed focal telephoto lenses), but look what you pay for, it’s really a good deal for amateur photographers.
Anonymous @ 6:22 pm
Very light and compact. This makes a great “traveling” lens. I take about 15% of my pictures with this lens, mostly out on hikes where I don’t want to haul around my expensive & heavy 70-200 f/2.8 L. This lens paired with an EF 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 USM or EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM will give you a compact, light-weight package that you can take along on trips or nature hikes, and cover all of the useful focal lengths.
Much better image quality than Canon’s EF 75-300 lenses. Ring USM for fast auto-focus, but no image stabilization. Good build quality for the money spent.
Sharpness drops off noticably past 200mm or so, with some flaws around the edges, but images are still acceptable for the most part. Great lens for 10D/Rebel/300D digital cameras, since the 1.6x cropping will eliminate the flaws at the egdes of the picture at the longer focal lengths, and make this lens effetively a 150-450mm.
Best used stopped down to f/8 or f/11, in good light or with fast film (or digital camera set at ISO 400+). Not recommended for low-light situations, but could be useful for indoor flash close-up portraits.
For the $250-$300 price range, this lens can’t be beat. To get noticeably better image quality, you would have to spend twice as much. If you’re inclined to do so, check out the Canon EF 70-200 f/4 L.
Richard B. Williams @ 7:47 pm
I bought this lens along with a 28-105mm zoom to get a wide coverage of focal lengths for as little money as possible. At the same time, I wanted to maximize my sharpness at 300mm for bird and astronomy photography. If this is your goal, then this is the perfect lens. It is significantly sharper than the 75-300mm lens at 300mm, while still staying under $300. If saving money is your absolute priority, then go with the 75-300mm.
In the end, I have become dissatisfied with the sharpness at 300mm. As stated in other reviews, it really drops off after about 200mm. At full zoom, I am finding the softness intruding on my pictures so I have started using it only as a 100-200mm zoomer. The 1.6x crop on my Canon 300D makes up for this somewhat, but it’s still a bit of a letdown.
Another aspect of this lens that I have found aggrivating is the tendancy for the lens to zoom/unzoom itself if mounted vertically. The weight of the forward elements is suffient to actuate the zooming mechanism. Sometimes this happens quickly and noticeably, but I’ve had long-exosure shots where the lens has slowly zoomed out during the exposure and ruined it (weird effect, but not what I was after). Astrophotography in particular tends to see frequent use of the lens in a vertical position and this lens is really not the right choice if you’re going to be aiming up.
Fernando Valenzuela @ 8:53 pm
The Canon EF 100-300 f/4.5-5.6 USM is the best entry level 300mm zoom lens. In order to do any better you have to get into Canon’s L line which means a lot more money. Many people, including myself, start off with Canon’s EF 75-300 f/4-5.6 III USM because of the low price. This lens won’t break the bank but is definitely worth the difference. The build quality is much better on the 100-300. Also I have found this lens to be sharper. Along with that, this one has ring-type USM instead of micro USM so it focuses faster and quieter while allowing full time manual focus–you can manually adjust the focus without having to switch between AF and MF. Also, since it uses internal focusing, the front of the lens doesn’t rotate or extend when focusing so it is easier to use a circular polarizer. For the money, you can’t beat this lens.
A photographer @ 10:09 pm
I bought this lens along with a couple of other Canon “prosumer” zooms several years ago when I switched from Nikon to Canon SLR’s. I hadn’t used it much until I recently rediscovered how useful it is.
See, I have the venerable 70-200/2.8L. That lens is truly outstanding. I use it a lot with the Canon EF 1.4X Extender which makes the 70-200 into a 98-280 f/4 zoom. When I got the 70-200, I pretty much stopped using the 100-300.
I recently realized that I carry the 70-200 around more than I actually use it. My most used lenses are in the normal to wide range unless I have a special purpose in mind that requires a longer focal length lens. But sometimes opprotunity presents the need for a long lens when you least expect it and, even though I was never a Boy Scout, I do like being prepared. The 100-300 is smaller and lighter than the 70-200/2.8L. It’s a pretty sharp lens if you recognize its limitations. Limitations include being a notch or two down in sharpness at the 300mm end of the zoom range unless you stop it down to around f/11. At 200mm or shorter, it performs well even at maximum aperture even though it’s not up to “L-series” optical quality.
It’s not “L-series” quality in build either. It has a plastic barrel and the manual focusing ring was an afterthought. It grows in physical size when zoomed to the longer focal lengths. It sucks in dust by doing this (I have lots of speckles inside my lens to show this–but they have no affect on image quality). It also has an annoying tendency to zoom itself back and forth by its own weight. I carry a large rubber band around to keep this from happening if for some reason I use the lens on a tripod and tilt it up or down.
I like this lens more today than I did when I first bought it, despite the fact that the 70-200/2.8 is a much better lens on all fronts.