Canon 70-200 f/4L IS exchanged

Wow, I love Amazon.com. I logged in yesterday, reported my EF 70-200 f/4L IS as defective (see June 5 entry), and the next day I had a replacement, all without leaving my computer (well, I did go to bed for the night, and eat breakfast). Gotta love UPS and FedEx delivery—way cheaper than driving an SUV somewhere.

Preliminary tests suggest that the replacement 70-200 f/4L is not only optically aligned, but might well offer imaging quality surpassing my expectations (field shots and some more careful tests are needed). I hope so, because I greatly prefer the size, weight and handling of the f/4 model; it’s considerably more pleasant to us than the heavy and bulky 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, which I also own. With the Canon EOS 1D Mark III, I can afford to give up 1 stop. See the May 4 entry on that subject.