Yourlensreview - Lens - Canon EF 70-200 F/4L USM

Excellent build quality, mine came including a superb lens hood. The lens does not extend during zooming, so one fixed length. Lightweigt, metal body.

Why is it white ? I'm not working in a hospital, all those blood stains on the lens body will disturb me after a while I think.
The supplied lens bag is not very usefull. Nice for collecting money in church.

Got mine a week now. Did some shooting in the Port of Rotterdam on Easter. Most pictures taken are good enough to keep. Very sharp and in daylight allmost allways enough light to shoot at 200mm with f/6.3 ~ f 7.1 with shutter speed of max 1/200 or less.
The price I paid was under the pshychological � 500,- line. I did paid � 529,- but Canon is going to refund me � 50,- because of the cash back action ( till june 2008)

The picture of the bird has been taken out of the car window , and has been cropped by Lightroom.

- Sharp wide-open, but better closed down
- Attractive bokeh
- Good contrast & colours
- Built like a tank
- Very well balanced
- Cheap for its performance

- No stabalizer
- No tripod collar supplied, but you don't really need it.

This lens is very affordable if you want a reasonably fast medium telezoom with stunning performance. It is 'only' a F/4-lens but you don't have to stop down to get excellent performance. And not only the sharpness is excellent, also the bokeh, contrast and the colours.

The build quality is like a tank, you really feel like you can drop this lens on the ground without any damage (but I won't try it out). Also it is very well balanced so it doesn't feel as heavy as you might think.

This lens does lack an image stabalizer, but there is a new version of this lens with that stabalizer only it costs about twice as much. And optically it even outperformes this lens, but you do have to pay for it.

Highly recommended unless you want to spend some extra money on the IS version, or the F/2.8 version (or both).

Fast focus
Decent image quality

Cost does not include tripod mount
White color

My main criticism of this lens is that it does not seem an extremely useful range for what I shoot.  Many images I have taken with it are at the full 200mm so I suspect I might have prefered the similarly priced 200mm f/2.8 prime.  It is a good lens and works well with extension tubes as a macro substitute. 

- Fast AF
- Sharpness
- L Quaility
- Hood included
- White

- White
- Expensive tripod mount (not included)

I bought this lens yesterday. It really statisfies me. The AF is quick and silent. It's very sharp. The built quality is very good, it feels very solid.

It's a bit pricy but it's defenitely worth it.

Sharpness
Fast focus
Lightweight

The colour ;)

Please see breinonline's review. That sums it up nicely.
The lens is a real keeper, as it is so fast and sharp.

+ White
+ Built quality
+ Sharpness
+ AF speed
+ Delivered with hood

- No weather sealing
- No tripod mount

The Canon EF 70-200/4L USM is one of the best affordable L lenses. De L series stands for quality and one can see that on different points of this lens.

First of all, the 70-200/4L is very well built. Because the lens is rather slim, you wouldn’t say so at first. When you are using the lens you definitely feel the built quality. Advantage of it’s size is the weight: a  70-200 (Sigma or Canon) is a lot heavier. The diameter of the lens is perfect, it fits very well in one’s hand. Because the lens has internal focus the lens doesn’t get longer during zooming. Also mounting a (pola)filter in front is simple because the front element doesn’t turn.

The 70-200/4L is a very sharp lens. Already from f/4 the quality is excellent. Stopped-down it doesn’t get much better. Color and contrast are very good. The bokeh is fine, thanks to a 8-bladed diaphragm. I haven’t noticed vignetting or CA. The lens is very flare resistive because of the lens hood (in package).

The AF speed is rapid and quiet because of ring-USM. The Canon 70-200/2.8 is just a little quicker. But the 70-200/4L lens is just quicker than the Sigma 70-200/2.8 EX HSM.
Unfortunately the 70-200/4L doesn’t have weather sealing. I photographed once in quite heavy rain and a day later right in the sun (Dutch summers...) and I got condense inside of the lens. Most of the condense was on the inner side of the front element. Because water can get in, it also can go out easily. After a few minutes in full sunshine the condense was gone.
Not included in the package is a tripod collar (mount on the lens for on a tripod/monopod). These collars are very expensive to buy. You do not really need a tripod collar but for the 300D the lens was rather heavy, it could move a little in the mount. With my present camera, a 20D it is no problem to mount on a tripod without a collar.