My Canon f/2.8L IS III has arrived, after waiting for what feels like forever…in all reality it was only a few months.  It’s arriving just in time for me to take it to Yellowstone to start testing it out.

My first impression was I could not believe how light the box was…I thought maybe I was getting ripped off, and the box was empty.  Un-boxing the lens and comparing it to the v2 of the 400 f/2.8 I really cannot believe how light it is.  And while the specs state that it is lighter than the 500 f/4, to me they feel about the same…which is fine by me, because I have not problem hand-holding the 500 for extended periods of time while shooting in the zodiac.   I am really wondering if I will even need to keep my 500 f/4 now, as the only reason I had it now was because it was lighter and more portable than the 400 f/2.8L  IS II.

With the improved image stabilization I am curious to see what shutter speeds I can shoot hand-held at, and whether or not there is any difference from version 2.  It did feel like the weight distribution was changed, but hard to say how much is true weight savings versus weight distribution to to “feel”.

Other than that, I have had no time to test it out, darned short days and “real job”, but I will have a week with it in Yellowstone coming up and will share my thoughts on in then.

For my blog post from when the 400 f/2.8L IS III was released see here.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me [email protected].