EF 300 F4 L IS switch to EF 70-300 F4-5.6 L IS

Royal Scan wrote:

Anyone else have experience with both lenses ?

I've worked with the prime mostly for concert photography and some portraits from a distance and love this lens.

One of the advantages in the field is you can quickly and swiftly rotate the lens 90 degrees (portrait to landscape) and back by holding the built in hood that allows it.

I'm considering switching to the 70-300 L IS because it's not exclusively zoom by feet, so more versatile, still comparable IQ and the loss of one stop at 300mm doesn't bother me, IS on the zoom lens is said to be better than 2 stops on the prime. Plus there's a 140 grams weight reduction.

The zoom lens has a separate hood, so judging by others that probably won't allow me to rotate the body while holding the hood > it'll detach ?

Appreciate your comments.. By the way ... does the 70-300 come with a tripod mount ?

The 70-300L does not come with a tripod foot although they are available to purchase as an extra. The 70-300L is officially NOT compatible with Canon TCs either. I seem to remember that a 1.4x would work when the lens is zoomed to 300mm (perhaps more than 270mm ?).

I don't know about the 70-300L but the 100-400L ii comes with a hood that has a locking button (and a small sliding window to allow access to CPL filters). So technically it MAY be possible to rotate the camera/lens while loosely supporting the hood in your left hand, but the hood certainly doesn't rotate on the 100-400L ii lens unless the button is pressed.

For these reasons (and pure reach) I bought the excellent EF 100-400L ii to replace my original 100-400L. The 100-400L ii is larger and heavier than the 70-300L though (and more costly).

Colin