The stability of the solid construction combined with minimum weight and excellent optical performance impressed me again and again, in fact I love prime lenses like my EF 85mm f / 1.2 II or EF 135mm f / 2.0 L,
However, impressed me this EF 70-200mm f / 4 L IS repeatedly, even from the Bokeh and image building.
With increasing focal length, this lens is still better and in the important Endbrennweite of 200mm not even the high-intensity 70-200mm f / 2.8 lenses are sharper, very well thus for the converter application.
In the class of high-intensity 70-200mm f / 2.8 lenses, all manufacturers are represented, including Nikon, Sigma and most recently a stabilized Tamron, although these are brighter in the open aperture, but not really better in the imaging performance as this f / 4p IS.
In addition, these lenses are (with the exception of Sigma and Tamron) again much more expensive, but especially those f / 2.8er lenses are almost twice as heavy (the EF 70-200mm f / 2.8L IS USM II weighs 1,490 grams, this EF 70 -200mm f / 4L IS USM but with 760 grams, only about half, the EF 70-300mm f / 4-5.6L IS USM is the way also about 300 grams heavier), which makes this lens very pleasant to handle and in the camera bag ,
So a wonderfully light and handy f / 4p in the design and quality of f / 2.8er lens has long been unique (and it is for Canon SLR still) to Nikon then since last year has a similar objective in the offer, but with a lot of plastic and no better. Unique is eventually copied by the competition, which was already at the first affordable full-frame Canon EOS 5D (2005) so, in 2008 Nikon D700 brought out with also 12 MP, Nikon just takes a bit longer.
On my ultra sharp lens with Dream Bokeh, Canon EF 180mm f / 3.5L Macro USM I see also occurs in the image quality is not primarily on the value of the open aperture at, but simply on the quality and precision of the built-optics.
The lens is now since 2006 in the Canon program, but absolutely up to date, it could be much better developed today. By 2010, it was the reference zoom lens with Canon and was then replaced by the EF 70-200mm f / 2.8 L IS II.
Addendum on 10/24/2013:
It is noticeable already that there was until about 10 months only one 4-star rating for this objective and not under 4 stars.
It seems as if some think now, this objective would be already getting a bit old and there were now Recent.
However, new and often confused with Better That's not easy. There are some objectives that had been around for 20 years and the (albeit without stabilizer) or visually with are among the best and the EF 70-200mm f / 4.0 L IS USM and the stabilization works very effectively (even by today's standards ), it is also the first Canon lens with 4-speed stability.
