I primarily do outdoor photoagraphy and am trying to decide between a Canon 100-300 5.6/ "L" lens and a 75-300 4.0-5.6 "Image Stabilizer" lens for an Elan IIE. The reason the "IS" lens sounded appealing is because I don't want to have to carry a tripod along all the time and it sounded like hand held photography was possible with this lens. However, it doesn't sound like the image quality is that great. What could I expect in comparison with the "L" lens in terms of quality and hand holdability? The "L" lens is only about $125.00 more. Thanks for your help. Gary

-- gary bares (wallyworld14@yahoo.com), December 21, 1999

Answers

Assuming your shutter speed is slower than about 1/(focal length)(e.g. 1/90 at 75mm, 1/350 at 300mm) on a tripod, the "L" lens is sharper. Hand held, the IS lens is sharper. With faster shutter speeds and steady hands, the "L" may give better results, even hand held.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), December 21, 1999.

Gary,

I owned the 75-300 IS. I think it can surprise you with the quality it can produce. It's not a miracle lens, but there isn't another lens you can handhold at 1/90 @ 300mm and get fairly sharp results. Like I said, I owned the lens. I sold it because it's a slow focusing lens (Canon shouldn't call it a USM lens - misleading) plus it tended to hunt while focusing (which drives me nuts). It's very suspectible (?) to zoom creep. And finally, I have doubts about the reliabilty of IS in Canon's consumer lenses. This is just a gut feeling on my part - I'm sure there are others who would say different. Most of the stuff I've read about the 100-300 "L" is positive. However, if handhold-ability is paramount, then you really don't have much of a choice (IMO) - go with the IS.

-- Jim Hicks (jhicks992@aol.com), December 23, 1999.