My favourite Canon Lens

My favourite Canon Lens

A page dedicated to my favourite Canon lens. Why? Because I think you can learn from my experience and the reasons making it my favourite lens.

You guessed it! It is the Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS USM. It carries a hefty price tag, and is a bit on the big and heavy side, but in my eyes it is worth every cent! Let’s see why...

Canon lens - Focal length

If you want to be a serious nature or wildlife photographer you need some serious glass. I favour wildlife photography and I live and operate in Africa. That means I need seriously long glass. In fact, I am not sure I would have operated too successfully without my digital crop factor (back in the film era).

I currently have an effective focal length of 500 x 1.6 x 1.4 = 1,120mm most of the time in the field, since I use a camera with a crop factor of 1.6 and I use the Canon Extender 1.4x II with my lens. Believe me, it is a very handy focal length to still have autofocus at!

I also use it fairly often at 500 x 1.6 = 800mm (without the extender) when I manage to get close to my subjects. This is already a bit on the long side (for close subjects). A Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM would have yielded an effective focal length of 960mm, which is a bit long… I will show you later why I decided against the Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS USM, which is actually also a very decent focal length.

Canon lens - Aperture

Now people would say: Why don't you use a cheaper lens, like the Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG? The reason is simple; I need to have the ability to blur out my background through a wide open aperture (on some shots) to separate the subject from its background and make it stand out.

Why?

Because that is what professional photographers do, and I do not want photo editors to choose other professionals' photos over mine due to the lens I use...

Canon lens - Sharpness

Another reason why a zoom lens like the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM did not work, is sharpness. You want sharp photos. No. Let me rephrase… You want razor sharp photos! It is the main determinant of a quality photo, and it can be really damaging to your reputation as a photographer to have unsharp photographs in your file.

With unsharp photos I do not mean those where you were aiming to achieve a blurry effect…

The Canon EF 500 mm f/4L IS USM is a really sharp lens due to high quality optics and craftsmanship. It features the best optics and technology of the best lens manufacturer in the world. The f/4 aperture also helps a lot for sharpness, because it lets through double the amount of light than a comparable zoom lens. And that means a higher shutter speed!

Canon lens - Weight

Some people would look at me funny when I mention this as an advantage. Some might even ask me some of that stuff I am smoking! What I mean is that it compares well to two other extremely good lenses in terms of weight...

The Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM and the Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM was also high on my most wanted list when I bought a long prime lens. However, they are almost double the weight and where I can still get away with some handholding with the 500mm, I doubt that would be able to with a lens double the weight.

I like photographing flying birds. Handholding a lens makes photographing flying birds a lot easier. I would have struggled doing this with the heavier lenses.

The 600mm and 400mm are also about 20% more expensive. However, I did not allow money to be a deciding factor.

Canon lens - Conclusion

Look, a Canon lens like the EF 500mm f/4L IS USM is not for anyone. It is a very expensive professional lens. I would not recommend anyone buy such a lens unless they are making money with their photography. However, if you can afford it, get it! It just makes it so much easier to make money with your photography.

So there you have it. That is my favourite Canon lens. Or, let me rather say my favourite Canon lens for the time being...

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