Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Super Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

I purchased this lens primarily for hand-held bird photography for use on my Canon 40D DSLR. The lens is typical of Canon's 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 doesn't have image stabilization (IS), which maintains the reasonable price, but I don't consider that much of a handicap using Canon's DSLR's, 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 40D's 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 that's 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 Canon's 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/4's, since this lens can be shot wide-open at the same high quality as the f/4's 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? I'm not slamming third party lenses in general by any means (I own a few), just in this case of comparing available alternatives (including other Canon's) 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 can't seem to be able to "paste" a small image into Amazon's review window.

For one that is willing to accept and operate within the parameters of this lens, that photographer will be handsomely rewarded by Canon's 400mm f/5.6L telephoto lens. In my case, it is exactly what I was looking for and it is exceeding all my expectations.

This lens is excellent. Excellent optical performance when used wide open at f/5.6. Great for Bird photography. Kind of heavy hand held but still workable. Fine for tripod use also. And you don't need to buy a lens hood as this lens has the hood built in.

I use this lens on a 5D.
It is definitely not as sharp as a 50mm lens, but this is something I accept as it is well known in photographic circles that
it's harder to get the same sharpness on a telephoto lens as it is on a wider angle lens, unless you want to put all the sharpness into
the center of the image, in which case you can get higher resolution. That's why you get better resolution from astronomical telescopes
(which are optimized for the center of the image) than from camera lens.
Overall I can't complain about this lens, for the price. There is very little chromatic aberration. It's built tough, it's light and
doesn't hurt my back.
Jut be aware that if you want top-notch quality (at a price) you will have to fork out a lot more money for the 400mm f/2.8 lenses.
In any case this will blow the zooms of equivalent focal length out of the water.
So rating this lens is not so obvious:as far as value for money goes it's five stars, but in absolute terms it's four stars.

I was waiting and waiting for an updated version of this lens (with IS hopefully) but finally gave up and bought one. I did not order it from Amazon because it does not seem to stock them and I got it from Norman Camera since they were the first one to receive fresh stock (Date code UX0317, so less than 2 months old). It is light but not that light, AF is super fast, seems to be very sharp too but only tried it for a few shots in cloudy weather. Will try to see how well it works hand held. Oh, did a quick and dirty check for AF microadjustment, seems like 0 works best (only did a quick compare with 3 -5s, 3 0s and 3 +5s). Overall, I'm happy with the lens.

Updated 04/26/09
Finally got a chance to take it out on a hike. Though it may be light by L lens standard, it is kind of heavy if you have to carry it for couple of hours. Image is sharp, very sharp providing you have very steady hand or good support, I think I will mostly have this on either a tripod or monopod. Despite of the weight and lack of IS, I am very very happy with this lens. It should be a 5 star rating if the price is somewhat lower.

This lens is quality at it's best. I've used it for a year + and it really does a great job. But, theres always a but, if your budget is limited to a couple of lenses, go for the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM Lens for Canon EOS Cameras. I have both and this lens is "L" quality as well. Not as much reach but far easier to carry around for the day. The 100-400 is great for specific shots and really the best there is, but not for carrying around all day. Recommended for limited budgets is - Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS Image Stabilizer USM Autofocus Lens & 5 Year Warranty & Filters & Accessory Kit