Any body heard of a Canon USM 100-400mm f4.5L lens before. I've seen a photo of it. Is there any reference site ?

-- Phicol Kwan (phicol@yahoo.com), December 18, 1998

Answers

There is a new 100-400 f45.-5.6 'IS' L (USM of course), but that's all I know about. Check the various Canon websites. It is well described on them.

-- Brad (reloader@webtv.net), December 19, 1998.

I was able to "play" with one at a local dealer a few weeks ago. The lens uses a push-pull zoom mechanism than has a tension adjustment. When fully extended, it almost doubles the length of the lens. It was a solid lens and not quite as heavy as I thought it would be. The f4.5 min aperature made it a bit dark when first looking through it. The IS function has the dual mode feature - mode 2 stabilizes only vertically for use when panning.

-- Larry Hertzler (lwh385@aol.com), December 19, 1998.

I was able to purchase one of the two that the one dealer here in Denver received. I have played with the lens, but have not had the film developed. The lens looks and functions exactly like the Canon 35-350L with the same IS controls as the 300L IS (all the way down to the tension adjustment ring).

-- Rick Holt (riholt@reincarnate.com), December 22, 1998.

I have one and love it, but still wish it was a two-ring zoom rather than push-pull.

It's so long that I find it quite hard to zoom when a moving target is involved.

-- Derek Clarke (derek_c@cix.co.uk), August 15, 2000.