Low-light champ

You're standing near the front of the auditorium as the play reaches its emotional climax. And even though the stage lights aren't at full, you're getting shots you can use. Or you're at a gymnastics meet, trying to get a close shot of your daughter on the uneven bars. It's all a piece of cake for this bright, capable telephoto lens. With a maximum aperture of f/2.8, it's got superior light-gathering capacity for its class. And the built-in, ultra-quiet HSM (Hyper-Sonic Motor) will take care of the big job of acquiring sharp focus over a long distance. You'll have the tools at hand to bring home the hard-to-get bacon — for less bacon than other DSLR lenses with similar specs.

It belongs in your collection

While this telephoto lens is optimized for full-frame cameras, APS-C cameras can benefit as well. The focal length will increase by a factor of 1.5X on most APS-C cameras (1.6X on Canon's APS-C models), so this 300mm lens will have a 450mm equivalent length on many non-full-frame cameras. With two separate mountings to choose from, this lens has the versatility to find a home in almost any serious photographer's lens collection.

Carefully machined low-dispersion optical elements and proprietary coatings yield a lens that is sharp, clear, and free of artifacts like color fringing, ghosting, flaring, and distortion. The lens accepts drop-in filters and a 46mm circular polarizer is supplied.