Canon 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 EF IS USM II (0571C005)

The second version of the popular Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM telephoto lens was released ahead of Photokina-2016. The lens is sharpened to work in tandem with Canon full-frame DSLRs, however, when you install the lens on a “carcass” with an APS-C sensor, it will not get lost either.

Integrated display

A distinctive feature in the appearance of the model is a monochrome display on the body, which serves to display information about the focus distance, depth of field and focal length. Switching between data display modes is carried out by pressing the “MODE” key, and when it is held for a long time, the screen colours are inverted (instead of black characters on a light background, it starts showing white characters on a dark background). The display does not have a backlight, so it is difficult to read data from it at night.

Lightning fast autofocus

Like it or not, the display is just an additional link in improving the perception of shooting parameters. Much more important was the second cool "trick" of the lens — an advanced autofocus system. When photographing, the telezoom uses the Nano USM ultrasonic drive to focus, which clings to the object in the literal sense of the word with lightning speed. And in the video recording, a stepper focus motor comes to the aid of the operator. Together with it, the focus shift is carried out smoothly and silently.

Spectacular bokeh

The low floating aperture of the lens (f / 4.0-5.6) is compensated by an effective optical image stabilizer, which provides a gain of up to 4 stops of exposure when shooting handheld in low light conditions. Special mention also deserves a 9-blade diaphragm, which makes the background behind the subject of the shooting downright dissolve.

Shooting from a distance

When zooming, a rather big “trunk” extends from the lens, but you should not worry about dust being sucked into the lens structure. The optical scheme, consisting of 17 elements in 12 groups, is designed to provide a high level of sharpness around the frame perimeter throughout the entire range of focal lengths. And it is suitable both for portrait shooting and for “shooting” at a distance, which is of particular relevance when photographing animals.