Well I went with the 100-400 L IS. I finally decided 200mm was not going to be enough reach and decided from there. I quickly realized that most anything at 400mm is slow(F5.6). The 400L prime is 5.6. The only way to get a faster 400 was to spend over $5000 for the F4 or $6500 for the F2.8(screw that). So, speed sort of went out the window quickly. Then I compared the prime and the zoom on the-digital-picture.com and at 400mm wide open the zoom actually had an edge in sharpness(go figure). What made me think the 100-400mm L was horrible was the review on luminous landscape comaparing it to the 400mm prime. Then I saw the side by sides on the-digital-picture.com and changed my mind. I have no idea how he got the 100-400 to look that crappy next to the 400 on luminous.
So I get it today and WOW. Not WOW for quality yet, as I haven't looked at the images on a computer yet....but wow for freaking heavy! I've never had a lens like this. I knew it'd be heavy when I saw it was 3lbs and then looked to see that the 17-40L I have is 17 oz(about a lb). I was like, yikes, like three of those on there! It was heavier than I even thought. I bring it out to my parent's and attach it to my camera for the first time. While I'm locking it in, I look up and the deer have shown up outside...how fitting. It was quickly clear how much the IS can indeed help. I didn't have a clue what I was doing with it yet and if that was set and done right, but you could see it working. It sure didn't take long for it to get so heavy I didn't want to be holding it up anymore. That'll change the more I use it I guess. I always laughed when I'd hear comments about not wanting to lug this or that lens around(short of those huge ones anyway). Not anymore. Not so much the lugging around as it is the holding it up in the air.
I did some test shots with IS off, at 400mm to check out the sharpness. I wanted to see if it was soft open at 5.6 like some say. It didn't appear tack sharp, but things seldom do viewed full size(with any small amount of sharpening applied...to be expected...it would be very sharp). The thing that mattered was it was no less sharp at 5.6 than it was at anything through F11. F10 and F11 actually seemed a bit softer but I suspect camera shake since the shutter was then down to 1/30 and 1/20 of a second and I fired them off real quick.
I then took it over to the national wild life refuge to try it out. It wasn't a good day over there since not everywhere is open for spring yet. But I did get a couple of a young deer....sort of. He was looking and my window made a bit of noise, so I only had a second or two to take the shot. I never noticed till just now what my shutter was. I was shooting the guy at 400mm and the shutter was 1/40! Without the IS on, this shot would have surely been TOAST. When you are out there at 400mm(640mm equivelent!) believe me, the lens moves all over the place if you are trying to handhold it. The shot I got is obviously not tack sharp, but it does appear very useable from what I can tell zooming in on the LCD. I can't believe it looks that good at 1/40. And from what I understand this is a bit older IS since this model is older now. I'll try and post some examples later if anyone cares and was wondering about this lens. It seems a fairly obvious choice if one wants out there to 400mm and doesn't have $5000+ to blow on the fast primes. Oh yeah and the push pull thing never seemed troubling at all. Of course this is my first real zoom, my 17-40L is at 17mm 99% of the time, and I was mostly always at 400mm with this one. But leaving your hand on the focus ring and push or pulling the zoom didn't seem all that unnatural.
It's funny what the case smells like that comes with these. It smells exactly like a new car. I guess that is appropriate as it feels like you buy a car when you take the L step on a zoom or big telephoto.
I'm glad that code for bh doesn't appear to be working, since I just saw that again after I ordered and recieved this.
Oh yeah, the Sigma Bigma(50-500mm). Here is a comparison between this one and the bigma at 400mm F5.6....
HERE The sigma looks like CRAP on there.
HERE is the canon 100-400L vs the canon 400L prime at 400mm F5.6. You can see the zoom has a slight edge in sharpness. Sure it costs a bit more, but you also get the 100-400 range.
Fairly impressed so far.
