DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Very good mechanics and form factor. Optics are somewhere around average minus

Started 5 months ago | User reviews
47872Mike Regular Member • Posts: 222
Very good mechanics and form factor. Optics are somewhere around average minus

Good AF motor. Not too big or heavy.

To approximate its optical performance, it's good at 100mm, Ok at 200mm if you stop it down a bit, and sometimes OK at 300mm if used around its optimal aperture range of f8-11 (depending on camera body, due to diffraction on densely-populated sensors. It's slightly better on full-frame than cropped sensor, but the above approximations still apply. Vignetting is pretty heavy, but well-enough corrected by the Canon lens profiles. There is quite a lot of purple fringing at 300mm and as it approaches; the Canon profile reduces it a fair bit. Linear distortion is not minimal, but is very well-corrected if you use the Canon correction profile.

Overall the lens is nice, but optically seems very similar to me to a good example of the 75-300, albeit that the superior mechanics increase your chances of achieving perfect focus.

Still quite a good lens if you can be bothered with it and don't want to drop hundreds of pounds on something much bigger and heavier, especially on full-frame.

All examples below with in-camera lens corrections activated.

Canon 7Dii 220mm F8

Canon 7Dii 300mm F9Third Example: Canon 6D 105mm F8

 47872Mike's gear list:47872Mike's gear list
Canon EOS 20D Canon EOS 50D Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D Sony SLT-A37 Canon EOS 6D +12 more
Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
Telephoto zoom lens • Canon EF
47872Mike's score
3.0
Average community score
2.8
Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM Canon EOS 6D
If you believe there are incorrect tags, please send us this post using our feedback form.
OP 47872Mike Regular Member • Posts: 222
Re: Very good mechanics and form factor. Optics are somewhere around average minus

Canon 6D 220mm F11

Canon T3i/600D 210mm F10

 47872Mike's gear list:47872Mike's gear list
Canon EOS 20D Canon EOS 50D Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D Sony SLT-A37 Canon EOS 6D +12 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum MMy threads