100-400 ii Review

Hello everyone,

I’ve heard many great things about the 100-400 ii, so I bought it too. After shooting with it for about 2-3 weeks I feel like I can safely say that the “hype” around this Big White is real.

Range: This zoom lens provides an incredible range, and coming from a 70-200 f4 IS, the extra 200mm you’re getting are amazing to have, especially with sports, wildlife, planes,… but indoors it is a little overkill compared to a 70-200 (Basketball, Handball,…).

Image Quality: The IQ I am getting with this lens even wide open is outstanding, I mostly used it wide open the whole time. In fact I thought that my 135 f2 was very sharp wide open, but now I tend to stop it down to f2.8 to get the same sharpness as with the 100-400 wide open!

AF speed and accuracy: the autofocus accuracy is amazing, bang on every single time! I did get a few shots out of focus but that is mostly user error. The speed is also incredible, when my 5D III didn’t snap the subject in focus for the first shot (although my settings are set to focus priority) the second shot was always tack sharp.

Downsides:

The lens is a little heavy, especially because I am coming from a lighter 70-200 f4 IS, but I’ll get used to it.

On my 5D III, the AF system can only focus with cross type points in the center columns, which is not great for vertical compositions. I will soon be upgrading to a 5D IV though and I hope that the improved AF system supports cross type points at f5.6 on the sides too.

So that was my review, I really highly recommend it, I will say that I ran into some issues with less light (AF was still bang on in dim lighting conditions) because of the f5.6 max aperture. For example for Basketball and Handball I switched to my 135 f2.

Still this lens is meant to be used outside, in good light, and it deserves a solid 5 stars!

Vertical compositions filling the frame are much harder without cross type points available on the right and left columns.