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The EF 100–400 mm f/4.5–5.6L IS USM is a professional EF mount telephoto zoom lens manufactured by Canon Inc. The first version of this lens was announced in September 1998, and an updated version was announced in November 2014. It is a high performance telephoto lens most often used for sports and wildlife photography.
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Crop factor
When used with a Canon APS-C (1.6× crop) DSLR camera or APS-H (1.3× crop), the field of view of this lens is equivalent to a 160–640 mm on an APS-C sensor, or 130–520 mm on an APS-H sensor. This is due to the crop factor inherent with APS-C or APS-H sensor digital SLR cameras.
The first version
Whilst the original version has excellent optical performance, its design predated the mass-market availability of digital single-lens reflex cameras. The telescoping nature of the original design means that the lens zooms quickly, although not all users prefer this design. According to Roger Cicala, the head of the American lens rental house LensRentals.com,
...although it's a compromise, it’s a very good compromise. It’s nearly as sharp as the [300 mm and 400 mm] primes and far sharper than a consumer lens. The huge range means getting the shot framed just right and not having to change lenses, and it’s relatively small and easy to shoot hand-held.
The telescoping design means that the lens sucks in air when zoomed from shorter focal lengths to longer focal lengths. Unfortunately, with the lack of anything to prevent it, it also sucks in any airborne dust Although this was not considered a problem when used with cameras that used photographic film, the dust can settle on the sensor of digital cameras leaving a permanent mark on every subsequent photograph until it is cleaned off. Newer cameras with dust removal systems have mitigated this problem somewhat.
This lens is compatible with the Canon Extender EF teleconverters on newer EOS bodies. Autofocus works with the 1.4× Extender (and only with cameras that can autofocus at f/8) and image stabilization (IS) works with both 1.4× and 2× Extenders.
Version II
The new Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM was announced on 11 November 2014 (10 November in the United States due to time zone differences from Japan), with availability expected the following month. Among the changes from the Mark I version are: