Niklas Nikitin wrote: > > Hi, > > As my longest prime lens, I am thinking of a 300/4L to use combined with a > Canon Extender EF 1.4x II. Canon have two 300/4L, the discontinued 300/4L > without IS and the present 300/4L IS. I will photograph mostly large birds, > other animals and people with this lens.
> > So my big question is; which one to choose! Is the IS so good that I should > choose the IS version over the non-IS one? > I had the 300/4 IS for quite a while before switching to the 300/2.8IS, and now, actually, I am thinking of switching back because the benefits of the 2.8 are fairly small when compared to the 300/4 IS. I shoot small birds and all sorts of other wildlife, as well as macro, and the 300/4 IS, with its close focusing distance, was the best lens for all of these, including middle magnification macro (like flowers, dragon flies, etc). It was much better than my 100/2.8 USM Macro for these uses due to working distance. I found in testing when I first got my 300/2.8 that the 300/4 IS version was as sharp as the 2.8 on a 2x converter except when it was wide open (at f4). Then the 300/2.8 was sharper. I don't recall testing with the bare lens, or the 1.4x because I was using a D30, and the resolution of both lenses would have been enough to make the pics look exactly the same with the limited sensor (that situation would no longer be the case with the D60, but i don't have both lenses right now to test). I really think the 300/4 IS has gotten a bad rep from the photodo.com tests because my photos, including those shot on slide film (generally provia 100), have always been exeptionally sharp with it, and the comparison to the 300/2.8 bore this out, despite the inclusion of the 2x converter. If there really is any sharpness difference, I would expect it to be more like that indicated on photozone than on photodo. Consider all this, and the fact that IS is much more important on a telephoto than on a less extreme lens, and I think your choice will be clear. Mike Michael Shupe M.J.Shupe Photography Michigan Tech University www.northernlightsgallery.com * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
