We just got a new lens: the Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS II USM. We already have the Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, but this new zoom lens has some advantages.
- It's got image stabilization (IS), so we should be able to get sharp pictures at lower shutter speeds. With the old non-IS 400 mm, I try to keep the shutter speed above 1/1000 second. We'll see if the new IS lens does better.
- It focuses much closer: about 3 feet, vs around 12 feet for the old one. This comes up fairly often, especially when shooting pictures of things such as lizards, butterflies, and the occasional friendly bird.
- It's a zoom. Every once in a while, this could be handy, but I'll probably shoot it mostly at 400 mm.
The key question, though, is this: can I get sharp pictures with it? I went to the UCSC Arboretum and Farm (same place we went for the previous blog entry) to try it out.
I took some more pictures of the Oak Titmouse pair visiting their nest. They eat a lot of long-legged arthropods, but I can't tell if those are insects such as crane flies, or perhaps spiders. This titmouse has a sporty black band across his belly, but none of the other pictures of this species show the band. I guess it's just personal style.
The new lens performed similarly to the old one, but the new one did fail to focus properly on some shots. That's a concern, and I'll have to do some more testing.
The lens seemed to perform pretty well with lizards and birds. It's not clearly better optically than the old lens, but it does seem to do what it's supposed to do. I was able to get fairly close to the lizards (too close for the old lens to focus). Also I made some sharp pictures of a Dark-eyed Junco in deep shade with a shutter speed of 1/40 second -- unheard of for me with a 400 mm lens. Overall, it seems to perform well, though I could always wish for better. It will definitely be nice to have two 400 mm lenses, so Joy and I can both take bird pictures at the same time. So it looks like we're keeping it, although we're still within the return window.
-- Brian