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I have used the 100 L lenses for a few years now, only on Underwater Macro, the non IS Lens was good, but the newer L IS Lens is simply better all round, lighter, sharper & the IS does count, I cant give you technical reasons why, but in my Underwater Macro Photography the L IS 100 is a great Lens. I am also using the D800 with the Nikkor 105, also a good Lens but not as good as the Canon 100 L IS.
On the f/4 70-200 cant comment as I've never owned one, but I do have the 70-300 L & the 70-200 f2.8 L IS V2, the 70-200 v2 is simply one of the best Lenses I've owned, sell your car & buy this Lens, you will appreciate the f/2.8 over the f/4 I am sure especially as you mentioned "Weddings", never shot a wedding biut I imagine the low light benefits of the f/2.8 would be superior for this sort of work compared to say the f4 to f5.6 of the 70-300L. The 70-300 L is not a bad lens, Good range reasonable IQ, but not in the same class as the 70-200 f/2.8 L IS V2 Lens & it is shorter & lighter than the 70-200 v2, I rarely use the 70-300L anymore, bought it for Safari shooting but the slow speed kills it for dawn & dusk shooting, works good in brighter light though & the other disadvantage with this Lens is you cant use the 1.4x or 2x extenders, so your stuck with the range.
On the f/4 70-200 cant comment as I've never owned one, but I do have the 70-300 L & the 70-200 f2.8 L IS V2, the 70-200 v2 is simply one of the best Lenses I've owned, sell your car & buy this Lens, you will appreciate the f/2.8 over the f/4 I am sure especially as you mentioned "Weddings", never shot a wedding biut I imagine the low light benefits of the f/2.8 would be superior for this sort of work compared to say the f4 to f5.6 of the 70-300L. The 70-300 L is not a bad lens, Good range reasonable IQ, but not in the same class as the 70-200 f/2.8 L IS V2 Lens & it is shorter & lighter than the 70-200 v2, I rarely use the 70-300L anymore, bought it for Safari shooting but the slow speed kills it for dawn & dusk shooting, works good in brighter light though & the other disadvantage with this Lens is you cant use the 1.4x or 2x extenders, so your stuck with the range.
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I recently upgraded from the USM to the L (100mm macro). I haven't been able to play with it much, but I was recently at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and it was the lens I used the most (hauled around a ton of other glass- everything from a 30/1.4, 17-40L, 8-16, 70-300L). I was really pleased with the portrait-type photos I was getting of some of the fishes and captive birds. I didn't have my old lens to compare side by side but I've got to think the AF was a little faster from what I remember, and the AF limiter was awesome to have. Photos came out great. Maybe I should have given my old USM more of a chance, but I really don't think I would have reached for it in this circumstance.
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DCM1024 I went back and re-read your original post. 70-200 F4 IS USM yes. 70-300L no! Can't use 1.4&2x Extenders on 70-300. The 1.4 works perfectly with no image degradation. 2x produces noise that I had to fix in Camera Raw in CS5.
Manually Focusing can be a pain with BIF. I could afford buying the extenders but not the longer lenses.
As I mentioned earlier the 100L & 70-200 both have 67mm thread mount so I can use my ND filters on both lenses.
I took pics of bees in flight using 70-200mm &1.4 extender with great results. A great amount of time and patience was needed. A lawn chair and shirt off allowed for some suntanning. ;D
Manually Focusing can be a pain with BIF. I could afford buying the extenders but not the longer lenses.
As I mentioned earlier the 100L & 70-200 both have 67mm thread mount so I can use my ND filters on both lenses.
I took pics of bees in flight using 70-200mm &1.4 extender with great results. A great amount of time and patience was needed. A lawn chair and shirt off allowed for some suntanning. ;D
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FWIW, I've had focus inconsistency with my 100L. I've done a bunch of testing and finally nailed down what the issue is. The problem with mine is poor mechanical tolerances in the focus mechanism.
The way I tested was to put camera/lens on tripod and aim at test target. Use EOS Utility to control and view on screen. While attempting to dial in AFMA by magnifying 200% in EOS Utility, I notice that each time I change direction of the focus mechanism by clicking the single step "<" after clicking on the single step ">" a couple of times (or do it the other way around and click the > after clicking the <) , the entire image shifts noticably in the viewer frame and the focus goes whack even though the focus supposedly only took a single step.
So click > a couple of times then a single < and the entire image shifts leftward and focus whacks out. Click < a couple of times and then > and the entire image shifts rightward and focus whacks out.
None of my other lenses exhibit this behavior (and yes IS is turned off) and this is 100% repeatable.
So I'd highly suggest checking for this on a new 100L while you can return it since it is very easy to do and the lens is basically worthless if it has this issue.
Unfortunately mine is a few months past warranty so I own a $1K brick with Canon written on it. Too bad for me I didn't figure out how to diagnose Canon's manufacturing problems earlier, maybe they would have had pitty on me and given me a better one...but I'm SOL since warranty is expired.
The way I tested was to put camera/lens on tripod and aim at test target. Use EOS Utility to control and view on screen. While attempting to dial in AFMA by magnifying 200% in EOS Utility, I notice that each time I change direction of the focus mechanism by clicking the single step "<" after clicking on the single step ">" a couple of times (or do it the other way around and click the > after clicking the <) , the entire image shifts noticably in the viewer frame and the focus goes whack even though the focus supposedly only took a single step.
So click > a couple of times then a single < and the entire image shifts leftward and focus whacks out. Click < a couple of times and then > and the entire image shifts rightward and focus whacks out.
None of my other lenses exhibit this behavior (and yes IS is turned off) and this is 100% repeatable.
So I'd highly suggest checking for this on a new 100L while you can return it since it is very easy to do and the lens is basically worthless if it has this issue.
Unfortunately mine is a few months past warranty so I own a $1K brick with Canon written on it. Too bad for me I didn't figure out how to diagnose Canon's manufacturing problems earlier, maybe they would have had pitty on me and given me a better one...but I'm SOL since warranty is expired.
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