Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Super Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

owned this lens for a couple of months, Pictures are sharp and focus is the fastest motor and Weight makes a huge difference out in the field, i switch from Nikon, where i had the tamron 150-600. and although i lost 200 mm, i win a lens who is incredibly sharp, even in the long end! very versatile, light and well built I do not regret having made the rebranding and buying this lens.

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Excellent lens, even though it lacks the IS of my 300mm fixed, the quality of the photos are very sharp and finely detailed. It even exceeded my expectations in low light conditions. A still hand or tripod is helpful.

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No reason to describe the product as it is widly considered as the sharpest canon super telephoto lens for low price. This used(very good) lens i got from C&W lens was amazing as item exceeded my expectation on how it was described. Very good and prompt costumer service. They followed up to make sure my expectation was met. I definitely recommend this seller.

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I purchased this lens primarily for hand-held bird photography for use on my Canon 40D DSLR. The lens is typical of Canons L-series "white" family of professional level telephoto lenses, having very high standards of construction and superb optical performance, even with a 1.4X teleconverter, when conditions allow. This lens is known as the "overlooked" Canon telephoto, since it does not garner the glamor of its cousins, the really long, heavy, faster, and vastly more costly professional telephoto lenses. It is also known as the "toy lens" by bird photographers who mostly use those really Big Berthas for long-distance close-ups with blurred-out backgrounds. I selected it for the high image quality wide-open, relatively light weight, and shorter physical length, allowing both hand-held and tripod mounted use, as well as its modest cost (compared to all high quality alternatives). The image quality is extremely high, even wide open at f/5.6, although it does improve slightly stopped down a notch or two. The image contrast, flare resistance, and color saturation are also excellent for a telephoto lens of its "older" fixed focal length optical design. It doesnt have image stabilization (IS), which maintains the reasonable price, but I dont consider that much of a handicap using Canons DSLRs, which allow low-noise high ISO settings for higher shutter speeds under decent lighting conditions. Braced against a tree, fence post, etc., and especially in a sitting position with arms resting on knees, for example, the lack of IS is simply not an issue. The focus is extremely fast and accurate with the 40Ds sensitive all X-type focus points, and the quickly removable tripod mount is of an excellent design that all tripod mounts should have. As a bonus, on the 40D, the lens has the equivalent field of view of a 640mm f/5.6 telephoto lens! When a high quality teleconverter can be used, this becomes almost a 900mm f/8 telephoto (actually 896mm)! Not to exaggerate the point too much, but thats starting to get into the Big Bertha focal length range, under the right lighting conditions. Other pluses include the handy built-in sliding lens hood and the very high quality included lens case, which are extra cost items for Canons non-L lenses. The 400mm and 500mm zooms all seem to suffer from image softness at their maximum focal lengths, which I would be using 90% of the time anyway, so I elected to simply get the highest quality fixed 400mm I could find for a reasonable price. I also decided that I could live with 1 f-stop less than the much more expensive f/4s, since this lens can be shot wide-open at the same high quality as the f/4s stopped down - thus resulting in f/5.6 anyway. This reasoning is even more appropriate when including the slightly less expensive, still high-quality, third party lenses, such as Tamron, Tokina, Sigma, etc. I reasoned that since I plan to use this lens for the rest of my life, why compromise in image quality for a few percent lower initial cost? Im not slamming third party lenses in general by any means (I own a few), just in this case of comparing available alternatives (including other Canons) to the selection of this particular Canon 400mm and its intended use. I was blessed with several excellent bald eagle shots on what I had expected to be just an initial "practice with the new lens" outing. Because of this excellent lens, it turned out to be a very productive shoot. I would include a thumbnail photo of one of these shots, except I cant seem to be able to "paste" a small image into Amazons review window. For one that is willing to accept and operate within the parameters of this lens, that photographer will be handsomely rewarded by Canons 400mm f/5.6L telephoto lens. In my case, it is exactly what I was looking for and it is exceeding all my expectations.

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Ive been using this for a while now. I think it takes great bird pics. It doesnt have image stabilization but if youre shooting moving, flying birds, you need a tripod anyway for the most part. I dont like carrying my tripod all the time, so I just use whats naturally around the area. I have used this lens without propping it on anything and actually lucked out and got some really good pics. This is an excellant lens for the price.

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Incredibly sharp, amazing lens! Love it for bird photography. Certainly its a heavy lens to carry around, but worth the effort for the results if you love nature photography. The one thing I find really annoying though is that the lens hood is built-in and cant be removed. Otherwise love this lens and use it with Canons 2x (III) extender, though you have to manually focus with this extender since you lose 2 stops of light (f11). Photo #1 (a juvenile Piping Plover) was taken with the 400mm alone, the second photo (Least Sandpiper) was with the 2x extender. Both were taken wide open (f5.6 or f11) on a Canon 5D Mark III body.

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The Lens is great - so far. Im still learning to use it to its best advantage and do not know how far away or how near I need to be to get the best results. And of course, I need to be able to hold it steady long enough.... What this lens does, much more so than even the Canon Macro EF 100mm f/2.8 USM lens, is show up my camera! The T4i is really surprisingly good generally speaking. But this lens really makes clear that the image sensor is at the bottom of Canons range, especially when it comes to taking shots at distances greater than twelve to twenty feet even with as superb a lens as this one. But I can neither afford a more expensive camera, nor could justify the expense on what is, in reality, simply a hobby. I have used this lens rather than the Macro to take shots of butterflies and dragonflies when they have been too far away and are being flighty. The results are good, if not excellent, but again that is likely to be me rather than the lens (and it may also be, in part, the size of the image sensor). My only gripe involves the strap of the carrying case: it is too narrow and cut into my neck the first time I used it. So now I have a more robust and wider strap and even with the weight of the lens carrying has become far more comfortable.

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I wanted to step up my wildlife photography, and this lens offers a great balance between higher quality and affordability. I was amazed at the photos I took while just sitting on my deck. The one thing I have learned about digital photography is to spend the necessary time with any lens to anticipate what settings will give you the best shot. I also got the 1.4x telephoto extender at the same time, and could not find (with my eyes anyway) much impact on the image quality. Sadly, many of my other lenses are not getting used as much, as this lens gave me such a big boost in my telephoto photography. Also, I got great moon shots as well, but be sure to use a tripod.

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I bought this lens hoping to finally be able to shoot wildlife and I am happy to say it has met every expectation. I went in understanding it was not a fast lens, but felt that by upping the ISO I shot in I could compensate for the relatively slow aperture and, for the most part this has panned out well. The lens is tack sharp and not too heavy to hand hold and you CAN get reasonable images off tripod if you know what you are doing. This is the only lens in Canons stable near this length that is affordable for me so I am happy to report I am not disappointed.

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This lens has blown me away and is now the favorite lens I own. Its solid, lighter than youd expect, fast focusing, and produces incredibly sharp and amazing images. Im mostly using it to shoot youth outdoor sports, and the results Im getting with the 400mm f/5.6L are what I was hoping to get with my 70-200 f/2.8. I was reluctant at first to commit to a 400mm prime lens because of the inability to zoom out to capture more of the scene. But Im finding that filling the frame and capturing more subject detail is producing images that really stand apart from most of the other youth sports pictures you usually see. One word of caution: Im getting the sharpest images shooting at a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 sec. So even in bright light, be prepared to come up from your base ISO.

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