Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

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must stop down at 300m, spinning front element, a bit too expensive for non-L lens

Well, what else can I say.. Did some comparison tests with 70-200mm f/4L and I bet the result will surprise you..

You can see some samples here: http://www.dphotojournal.com/canon-ef-70-300-mm-f40-f56-is-usm/

build quality can be better, ring USM will be MUCH better, focus lock should be availble for all focal lengths

Surprised by the wonderful performance of this lens. Smile

Will highly recommend it to many people. Black lens attracts lens attention than the 78cm

Lens hood may be included.

Absolutely great and adequate lens for the army of new DG SLR enthusiast(most of them with EOS 350X-Digital Rebel).

Great 'learning lens':
-on tripod picture quality equals 70-200 f4 L,
-'on the run - in hands', much better then 70-200 f4 L due to great IS,
-better range, mobility, usefulness...
-great handling on EOS 350X...plus...

So, if you are not 'Lowhite snob', but eager to learn more about use,technique,colors...Canon have just offered us with the right and reasonably affordable lens.

Spinning front element/focusing tube. Not FTM or Ring-HSM. Lose some sharpness at the long end. Also very pricy for a consumer zoom.

As first impressions go this little lense (and for this range of zoom, it is quite small) impresses. There is perfectly decent (not L sharp but eminently usable) image sharpness throughout the range, with a little bit of softness at the 300mm end wide open. Stopped down a bit (F/8) everything gets nice and sharp, at least on my poor outdated 10D (sad, but true). Like most other consumer zooms the contrast of this lense is a bit lower than a professional L, but nothing to write home about, especially with the image tweaking possible with digital. Just image-wise this would be a perfectly usable lense, though massively overpriced for the image quality.

It's the IS you pay the money for, and that's what you get. I've never worked with an IS lense that ran this well before. Perhaps it's just my copy but I can pull feats I've never come close to before with this IS. 480mm equivalent magnification and I can pretty consistently get my shutter speeds down to the 1/10-15 range. Granted, it's not 100% all the time, but this lense's closest professional competition is the 70-200 F4, and given a choice between decent image quality with excellent IS or excellent image quality with no IS, I'll take the one I can confidently handhold without my photos looking like I shot them doing jumping jacks.

All in all, if you want a wide-range zoom that you can actually handhold without spending an arm and a leg (look, it's no match for the 70-200L IS 2.8, and anybody who does that comparison is just BSing) you've pretty much got no other choice, but hey, it works great for what it's for so don't sweat the decision. Now if they could just give it Ring-HSM and get rid of that damned rotating front element...

I bought this lens yesterday and immediately went for a tryout
walk. Shot a lot of flowers and some butterflies. Lens was quick to focus (on a sunny day) at all ranges. 3 stops stabilizer makes wonders. Later, at home, tried it in some dimmed lighting and also worked well. Photos, when loaded to my notebook, looked sharp and with nice colours. But since I am far away from being "pro"-like, my opinion could be somewhat skewed towards being too optimistic.

build quality not up to L standards,but hey...it isnt an L

I own several L len's including the 70-200 4.0,the 200 2.8,135 2.0....I had the 24-70 2.8 which i sold and i await delivery of the new 24-105 Is....I have been hoping to find a less conspicuos lighter lens for some time that i could carry around easily without sacrificing image quality....this lens has terrific IS,the pictures Ive taken so far are quite sharp,the range is terrrific and the lens is a comfortable weight and size.I think this lens will prove to be exactly what im looking for when i travel to my kids school to take pictures of sporting events etc. without lugging around heavy conspicuous len's....so far im impressed