Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM Overview

Introduction

Ease of Use

Weighing in at a whopping 2,590g / 91.4oz and measuring 32.3cm in size, this isn’t a lens for the faint-hearted! Notice that it makes use of an inside zoom design and subsequently doesn’t prolong as you zoom from 100mm to 300mm or vice-versa.

We’ve been testing it with the Canon EOS R5, a digital camera physique that it is vitally prone to be paired with by the skilled customers who’re drawn to this lens within the first place. You’d obtain an excellent higher stability by attaching the elective battery grip for the Canon EOS R5, too.

As you’d count on, the lens feels extremely effectively constructed, with the weatherproofing supplying you with confidence that you would be able to shoot utilizing this lens in every kind of various circumstances. The lens mount is a high-quality steel development, which once more feels very robust and safe.

So as to connect the lens to the digital camera, you’ll see that there’s a purple line on the rear of the lens, which matches as much as an identical purple line on the digital camera physique itself. Line the 2 up, and twist to lock the lens into place.

Across the Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM lens there are three completely different rings to pay attention to.

In the course of the lens you’ll discover the most important ring, which controls the zoom of the lens. It’s darkish gray in color and marked with 4 completely different focal lengths that will help you rapidly soar to the focal size you need – 100, 135, 300mm and 300mm.

The zoom ring is ridged that will help you get grip on it, and like the remainder of the lens feels very sturdy and high-quality. It’s fairly audible in operation, although, emitting a distinctly metallic sound as you flip it – possibly this may reduce with time and use.

In direction of the rear of the lens barrel you’ll discover the handbook focusing ring ring which is a couple of quarter of the scale of the zoom ring. It’s equally colored and ridged to the zoom ring, however feels barely completely different – if you happen to’re not wanting on the lens, you must be capable to really feel the distinction in textures fairly simply.

The focusing ring has simply sufficient give to it to make positive tuning handbook focus properly exact, with out being too tight or too free.

In direction of the entrance of the lens barrel there’s a slim white, knurled ring which you should utilize to rapidly entry completely different settings which you’ll customise from the digital camera physique. Relying on what you wish to do, you should utilize it to alter aperture, shutter velocity, ISO or publicity compensation. You may also flip it off.

This ring has one other completely different texture to the opposite two rings so once more yow will discover it simply with out wanting on the lens. It’s price noting that this lens clicks as you rotate it – that’s useful for listening to or monitoring as you modify a setting, however is much less helpful if you happen to’re capturing video slightly than stills.

On the very entrance of the Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM lens, you’ll see the distinctive purple ring which adorns all Canon L sequence “skilled” lenses. It doesn’t do something, but it surely marks out the lens as belonging to the high-end vary.

On the left-hand facet of the lens, wanting from the rear, are 5 switches. Ranging from the highest we discover the Lens Perform / Focus Preset / Selector change.

The Focus Preset choice means that you can preset any focusing distance after which immediately focus at that time even while you’re capturing a special topic. This operates in each AF and MF modes. The Recall choice then permits you shoot on the preset focusing distance.

Virtually on the very entrance of the lens is a darkish gray, knurled circle into that are set 4 Lens Perform buttons which by default act as Focus Maintain/AF Cease buttons. You may select to assign completely different capabilities to those buttons from the Customise Buttons part of the digital camera’s menu system.

Beneath is a Focus Limiter change with two settings, Full (1.8m to infinity) or 6m to Infinity.

Subsequent is the usual AF/MF change which sits simply above a picture stabiliser change, which will be set to both on or off.

Auto-fcusing proved to be extraordinarily fast, quiet and correct for nearly the entire time. The hit fee when utilizing it together with the EOS R5 digital camera was very excessive, making it ultimate for capturing precisely the appropriate second throughout sports activities and motion images.

The autofocusing can also be very quiet, making it ultimate for discreet conditions (equivalent to wildlife images), in addition to to be used whereas filming movies.

Focusing is inside, that means the entrance factor of the lens doesn’t transfer when focusing or zooming. You may subsequently use it simply with filters, though the thread is a slightly large 112mm in measurement.

Beneath that’s the Stabilizer Mode change, which has three settings marked 1 / 2 / 3.

Mode 1 corrects vibrations in all instructions and is finest suited to nonetheless images. Mode 2 is for panning pictures taken both horizontally or vertically and is finest suited to transferring topics. Mode 3 corrects vibrations in the identical means as Mode 2 however solely through the publicity, making it finest suited to irregularly transferring topics

Across the base of the lens is a moveable however non-removable tripod collar/foot. This isn’t solely helpful when utilizing the lens with a tripod, but in addition when handholding the lens to maintain it as regular as attainable.

You may transfer the foot across the lens to whichever place you want, supplying you with good flexibility to maneuver your digital camera. The mount clicks at 4 positions, each 90 levels.

There’s a safety slot positioned below the duvet of the orientation locking knob which lets you connect a wire-type safety lock.

Two steel lugs are connected that are used for attaching the provided shoulder strap, a slightly important accent given the load of thsi lens.

A high-quality lens hood (ET-124) is included within the field which is connected to the lens by sliding it on after which utilizing the knurled hood lock knob to tighten it into place. The hood will be reverse mounted on the lens for simpler storage.

There’s additionally high quality padded case (LS100-300) in addition to entrance and rear lens caps supplied within the field.

Focal Vary

On the 100mm focal size the angle of view is 24° levels.

100mm

On the 300mm focal size the angle of view is 8° levels 15′.

300mm

Chromatic Aberrations

Normally seen as purple or blue fringes alongside high-contrast edged in {a photograph}, chromatic aberration generally is a downside for some lenses. With the Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM lens nevertheless this can be very well-controlled, to the extent that it is very tough to search out examples of any type of fringing occurring in any respect. An especially spectacular efficiency.

100mm

300mm

Vignetting

When capturing on the most aperture of f/2.8, you’ll be able to see some mild vignetting at 100mm. It’s not vastly noticeable when capturing regular topics, however you’ll be able to see it when photographing a white wall. The impact is rather more minimal when capturing at 300mm. All through the focal lengths, the issue nearly utterly disappears while you shut down the aperture to f/5.6.

100mm / JPEG

100mm / RAW

300mm / JPEG

300mm / RAW

Distortion

There’s some barrel distortion evident at 100mm and various pin-cushion distortion at 300mm within the RAW recordsdata – the Canon EOS R5 digital camera mechanically and efficiently applies corrections to the JPEG recordsdata that removes most of it.

100mm / JPEG

100mm / RAW

300mm / JPEG

300mm / RAW

Macro

The Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM shouldn’t be a delegated macro lens, however you would possibly wish to have interaction it for typical macro topics, equivalent to flowers, particularly on the telephoto finish of the lens.

The closest focusing distance is 1.8m at both finish of the lens, and the utmost magnification out there is 0.16x on the 300mm focal size (0.06x at 100mm).

Bokeh

Bokeh is a phrase used for the out-of-focus areas of {a photograph}, and is often described in qualitative phrases, equivalent to clean / creamy / harsh and so forth.

With a large most fixed aperture of f/2.8, 9 aperture blades and a high-quality development, we’d count on the Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM to provide nice bokeh, and we now have not been dissatisfied.

We do realise, nevertheless, that bokeh analysis is subjective, so we have included a number of examples beneath in your perusal.

Sharpness

So as to present you ways sharp the Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8L IS USM lens is, we’re offering 100% crops on the next pages.