EF 800mm f5.6L IS USM

Available from June 2008

The EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM enhances Canon’s super telephoto range with the longest focal distance of any EF lens on the market. Light enough to allow for handheld shooting, it is expected to be popular with sports, news and wildlife photographers.

Benefiting from UD and fluorite lens elements along with a raft of new optical technologies, the lens offers professional photographers an exceptional degree of image quality – as a standalone lens and when combined with the Canon EF 1.4x extender.

Key features
- 4-stop Image Stabilizer with two modes
- two fluorite, one UD and one super UD lens elements
- ring type USM auto focus with fulltime manual override
- circular aperture diaphragm for pleasing background blur
- Supra Spectra coatings to reduce ghosting and flare
- magnesium alloy body – 4.5kg

The lens features environmental seals to protect against dust, rain and humidity.

Image Stabilizer
The 4-stop Image Stabilizer (IS) significantly extends the low light performance of the lens. Photographers normally shooting handheld at 1/1000 second can switch on IS to obtain a similarly steady and blur-free result with a shutter speed of just 1/60 second. For shooting immobile subjects, Mode 1 corrects for movement in the image along both the horizontal and vertical axes. For shooting while panning horizontally to follow a moving subject, Mode 2 turns off vertical correction and prevents the effect of dragging the subject back through the frame. IS switches off automatically when the camera is mounted on a tripod, thus preventing feedback loops between the IS sensor and internal motor vibrations.

L-series optics
The lens incorporates a newly designed optical system that limits lens size while improving image clarity over the total image area. A combination of fluorite, UD (Ultra-Low Dispersion) and Super UD glass elements are used to eliminate the secondary chromatic aberrations that otherwise reduce sharpness and introduce colour fringing. Canon’s patented Super Spectra lens element coatings reduce reflections off lens surfaces, ensuring undistorted images with natural colour balance and minimal ghosting or flare.

Lightweight design
The lens employs magnesium alloy components to significantly reduce weight and size. Despite its longer focal length, the EF 800mm f5.6L IS USM is a similar length to the EF 600mm f4L IS USM at 461mm, but weighs 860g less. In keeping with Canon’s Kyosei philosophy of living in harmony with the environment, the lenses feature only lead-free glass.

Superb operability
Several features are incorporated to assist photographers in the field. The AF stop button at the front of each lens allows photographers to temporarily turn off auto focus. The button can be configured to control AF mode, IS, and AE lock with the EOS 40D, EOS 5D, EOS-1D Mark III and EOS-1Ds Mark III. The EF 800mm f5.6L IS USM also features a focus preset function that electronically memorises a user-selected focus position – particularly helpful for sports or wildlife photographers.

Pricing and availability
The EF 800mm f 5.6L IS USM will be available from June 2008 priced at £8999.99 RRP inc. VAT / €13299.99 inc. VAT