...hopefully, anyway!!!

Much sooner than expected, I am in a position to complete my set of lenses with a long telephoto. At the moment I am leaning towards the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM. I want it mainly for wildlife and possibly sports photography.

If I have read the online reviews as carefully as I hope then the IS on this lens will give me an extra 2 or 3 stops which means that the significantly more expensive 70-200mm f/2.8 L will not be required. Any thoughts or experience on this?

Do any of you already have either this or the non-IS version? What are your experiences, please?

I did look at the Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS but was really put off by the reported lack of sharpness when wide open and the 'trombone' style of zooming has come in for criticism for forcing dust into the camera at times.

I can currently get the glass for 500 to 600 UK pounds off the RRP, which makes me rather happy!

Any further thoughts to assist me before I finally make a final decision and place an order?

IS is more for low light than it is for fast action.

You've already seen what the 70-200mm f/4L non-IS can do on a fast bird in lowish light:


Bird_Branches_Big by cantwellian, on Flickr

Cropped down to this:


Bird_Branches_Big_Crop by cantwellian, on Flickr

And, it's for sale right here in our classifieds. 

I was resorting my camera bag - the Canon one that came with my bundle. I don't like the bag, really, but it's what I got...

Anyway, I have room for one more flash (on the way) and two more lenses. I'm hoping to break down someday and splurge on the 10-22 for wide angle landscape shooting and then a good macro lens.

Ordered the  Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM yesterday  Very impressed with all the reviews and comments about the lens and the 'new' IS, especially here: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-70-200mm-f-4.0-L-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx

Can't wait for it to arrive!! 

It is a great lens. It is the lens that I would own except I went to the 2.8 for a few reasons that I won't bore you with but I will tell you one. I am hoping that I am able to get very good results out of the 1.6 or the 2 times extender. To me if I get the 2x then I will lose two stops when I use it which will knock me down from 2.8 to 5.6. Now if I was starting at 4.0 and going down two and ending up at f8 then I worried that that might be a problem for what I hope to do.

If it was not strongly that idea then I would have very happily bought the exact same lens you just did.

You mean the x1.4 or x2 extenders? I have done some reading about them and apparently the 1.4 is the one to go for. I have read of quite a few problems with the x2.

I might have a look at the 1.4 in the future...