Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM Lens Review

Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM Handling and Features

This lens bears all the hallmarks of Canon's high-end telephoto lenses in its design and build, including the off white paint finish designed to make the lens easier to handle in hot, direct sunlight. Tough, weather sealed construction is complemented by chunky switches that are easy to operate in a hurry, and possibly even when wearing gloves. As a result, this is a reasonably heavy lens, weighing 2.1kg. Even so, it just about balances well with the Canon EOS 5D MkIII body used for testing and its size, and weight make it fairly comfortable to hand-hold.

Auto focus is powered by a ring-type Ultrasonic motor, and focusing is extremely fast and is virtually silent. Manual adjustments can be made at any point by turning the focus ring and focus lock buttons are provided on the lens barrel for focusing and recomposing. The focusing ring is smooth, with just the right amount of resistance to make applying fine manual adjustments a pleasure. Minimum focus is 3.3m from the sensor plane, which is typical for a lens of this focal length and aperture.

Focusing is performed internally and the lens accepts 52mm filters that drop into the rear section of the lens. A deep circular hood and hard lens case are also supplied as standard. Canon's 1.4x and 2x teleconverters can both be used with this lens to add more flexibility, although using a 2x converter will result in a slow maximum aperture of f/8 with this lens, which may also cause autofocus issues on some Canon camera bodies.

With care, it is possible to take sharp images handheld using the image stabiliser at shutter speeds as low as 1/25sec, around half the time. This is roughly four stops slower than the usual rule of thumb for shooting handheld will allow. The image stabiliser also holds the viewfinder image very steady, which can help with focusing and composition.

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