NormanTheGr8 Loc: Racine, Wisconsin

I've shot the Canon on my 7Dmk2now for 3 yrs love the image quality . I even have it mounted on my Sony a7III auto focus is fast and maybe even better than on the 7D

ggab Loc: ?

It really boils down to:

1-$$$ available
2-$$$ available and
3-Just how important is it to you to have the best?

I am going to assume you shoot nature/birding.
Do you plan to hand hold or mount?
Is IS, VC, OS really important if you are shooting at 1/700 to 1/1500 shutter speed?
Do you plan to shoot in the rain? Is your camera weather sealed?

As you can see, everyone is all over the place with their third party lens choices however most everyone agrees that the Canon L II is the best and the most expensive.

I choose the Sigma initially because with a recent, at the time, firmware upgrade the focus speed and OS improved significantly and it cost less than the Tamron. I tested both, in April 2018, and prefered the Sigma. Roughly a year later I had the opportunity to buy the Canon new at a reduced price and did so.
While the Tamron folks will tell you it is a "faster" lens wide open than the Sigma, it is only roughly 1/3 stop faster not a big deal. The Tamron does have weather sealing and costs a bit more.
There are tripod/monopod mounts available for both and neither come with one.

Good luck with your choice and enjoy!

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Let me just add- there are times when good enough is good enough especially if you are not primarily shooting birds or wildlife. But if that is the case then you probably aren't even considering the Canon lens. The Tamron and Sigma will do the job.

Money is always a factor but I think it comes down to image quality and without a doubt, the Canon version provides the very best. If you can afford it buy it! You won't be wondering if there is something better.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Your choice is the Canon or one of the others.
I own the Canon for the reason of superb IQ and NO perceptible loss of IQ with either TC.
Built well hyper fast focus and the real bonus is no other 100-400mm focuses anywhere near as close as the Canon at 400mm.
It is nearly like carrying around a macro lens.
No other brand including other camera manufacturers have anything like it.

MountainDave

I would suggest you google pro reviews and comparisons and check user reviews as well. I have the Canon version II myself. It is one of 10 lenses I own, 7 are L. If I could only keep one, it would be the 100-400. One reason is that it is very versatile. Besides wildlife, I've taken beautiful landscapes, portraits, and flowers with it. The IS works so well that I can hand hold it at 1/40 and get good results. People often only look at sharpness but equally important is AF performance and color rendering. The Canon excels at both. Simply put, it produces beautiful images. Finally, it also works really well with 1.4X.

Dave

brooklyn-camera I Loc: Brooklyn, NY

I must agree....... I'm 100% in agreement about the 100-400 II....best lens around.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Without a doubt... and putting weight and price aside... the Canon 100-400L II is the best of the three. It has better image quality, better build and is up to 2/3 stops faster than the 3rd party lenses.

All three lenses use fast ultrasonic focus drive and all three have effective image stabilization. The IS on the Canon is a significant upgrade from what was on the first "push/pull zoom" version of that lens.

The Canon is a bit bigger and heavier than the other two, but that's largely because it's a more robust lens. The guys at Lensrentals.com enjoy taking things apart just to see what's inside and when they did that with it they called the Canon 100-400L II "Over-engineered... the best built zoom lens we've ever seen!" (Note: That was before the Canon 200-400mm 1.4X Extender lens was introduced... that's probably even beefier!)

The Canon lens uses fluorite in its optical formula, which is especially effective reducing chromatic aberrations in telephoto lenses. Canon has long been a pioneer using fluorite in many of their lenses. In the 1970s and 1980s they developed means of growing artificial fluorite crystals that were large and pure enough for lenses, as well as new methods of working it into usable elements. Today many of Canon's lenses longer than 200mm use fluorite... more than any other manufacturer (Nikon recently revised a half dozen of their premium lenses to use it... but their prices for "FL" lenses is much higher than comparable Canon).

All three lenses are *not* internal zooming... they extend significantly when adjusted to longer focal lengths. This design allows them to be reasonable size and weight, though it does change balance slightly and that can be a consideration if using the lens on a gimbal.

All three lenses are variable aperture zooms. But they differ a lot in where in their focal length range the aperture steps down.

- The Canon lens:
--- f/4.5 from 100 to 134mm
--- f/5 from 135 to 311mm
--- f/5.6 from 312 to 400mm.

- The Tamron 100-400mm:
--- f/4.5 from 100 to 136mm
--- f/5 from 137 to 180mm
--- f/5.6 from 181 to 280mm
--- f/6.3 from 281 to 400mm.

- The Sigma 100-400mm:
--- f/5 from 100 to 111mm
--- f/5.6 from 112 to 233mm
--- f/6.3 from 234 to 400mm.

So while at first glance there doesn't appear to be a lot of difference, when you look deeper the Canon lens is 2/3 stop "faster" at many focal lengths. In challenging lighting conditions, it might be the difference between being able to get the shot or not. But it's also one reason the Canon lens is a little bigger and heavier. The Canon 100-400L II weighs about 3.75 lb., compared to approx. 3 lb. for the Tamron and roughly 2.7 lb. for the Sigma. The Canon uses 77mm filters, while the two 3rd party lenses use 67mm.

Another reason for the weight difference is that the Canon lens *includes* a tripod mounting ring, which I'd consider a necessity with a 400mm lens, even with highly effective IS. Though all these lenses can be hand held for a while, eventually your likely to want the relief of some sort of support. And with long telephotos like these, that's best done with a tripod ring. There is one available for the Tamron, sold separately (adds $129 to the cost of the lens).

In fact, the Tamron ring is a neat design... They've incorporated an Arca-Swiss compatible dovetail into it (as they are doing with the rings on all their recent lenses that use them). I wish Canon would do the same. The tripod ring "foot" for the Canon isn't an ideal fit for accessory Arca-Swiss lens mounting plates. But there are several manufacturers offering replacement feet with the built in dovetail, for not much more than the cost of one of those lens plates.

There isn't a tripod ring available for the Sigma and no effective means of fitting one. Someone in Germany was making a 3D printed ring for it, but it's plastic and due to the location of the lens' switches, only installs for horizontal/landscape orientation. It can't be rotated to vertical/portrait orientation, which is one of the primary purposes of a tripod ring.

While the Canon 100-400L II has the best image quality... To my eye the Sigma is 2nd best by a narrow margin over the Tamron. It's not a very noticeable difference... If I didn't use the Canon I'd buy the Tamron for it's tripod mounting ring option.

The 3rd party lenses are a lot less expensive than the Canon, even though it's currently on sale with a big discount ($1800 after $400 discount). If you use Arca-Swiss quick release system, figure $75 to $125 for a replacement foot for the Canon, too. The Tamron is selling for $800 and the tripod ring for it costs another $129. The Sigma is the least expensive now, on sale for $609 (after a $190 discount).

You won't find many people with hands on experience with all three lenses. Most, like me, looked closely at them in detail and made our choice. You can read full, detailed reviews of all three lenses at Bryan Carnathan's web site...

Canon 100-400L II: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-100-400mm-f-4.5-5.6-L-IS-II-USM-Lens.aspx
Tamron 100-400mm: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Tamron-100-400mm-f-4.5-6.3-Di-VC-USD-Lens.aspx
Sigma 100-400mm: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Sigma-100-400mm-f-5-6.3-DG-OS-HSM-Contemporary-Lens.aspx

At that web site, you also can compare the image quality of the three lenses side by side...

Canon vs Tamron: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=972&Camera=979&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=1&LensComp=1178&CameraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=1
Canon vs Sigma: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=972&Camera=979&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=1&LensComp=1120&CameraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0
Tamron vs Sigma: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=1178&Camera=979&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=1120&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

Note: All the above image quality comparisons show magnified test shots done with 50MP full frame 5Ds-R camera, which is very demanding of lenses. If using another camera and/or a differnet image sensor format, you may wish to change the camera selection. Also, you can do similar comparisons of other image qualities: flare, distortion and vignetting.

Hope this helps! Have fun shopping.

Metis407 Loc: Canada

Hi there I have a Tamron 150 to 600 G2 and I am very happy with it. It is fairly heavy but I can take decent photos with it hand held. it is sharp but I may just send it and my camera Canon 77D off to have it calibrated. I did that with the Tamron 18 to 400 and it works very well. Hope this helps.

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Agree!!

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Absolutely agree.

rjandreoff Loc: Hawaii

I think Dustin Abbott offers a very valuable assessment on this topic. After reviewing his youtube piece, a friend of mine and I went into the field to test it for ourselves. He currently owns the Canon 100-400 L II, paid about $1800 for it, and loves it. After using it for a fews hours (mounted on Canon D5 MIII), it was clear to me that is a terrific lens. 9.9 on a scale of 10. I purchased the Sigma lens for B&H (Nikon version) with the dock, B&W filter, 4 year extended warranty, and cleaning kit for $670 plus change. At the end of the day, we both concluded the Sigma results were quite close to the Canon it terms of overall performance. IQ was almost identical in nearly everything did. But the AF came up short on the Sigma more than I liked. But then again the Canon's was utterly amazing. Never missed. Sigma's build quality is not what one would call "PRO" like the Canon. But that also lends it to being extremely light and manageable for field use. The Sigma did surprisingly well in close ups, better than specs would indicate. Bokeh was very pleasing. I have read/heard about quite a bit of Chromatic aberration, but we saw little evidence of anything excessive. Easily corrected in post. The Sigma is a REAL value. AND mine worked great right out of the box on D800e and D4 bodies. No dock adjustment needed. I am keeping the lens and using it a lot.

stenojj

I am just an enthusiast with an entry level Canon Rebel T6s. However, I purchased a refurbished 100-400 L IS II refurbished from Canon and it was worth. every. penny!!! Here are some shots I took just two days ago with it. It auto focuses fast enough for me!

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Mr.Ft Loc: Central New Jersey

Thanks for all the replies, after reading everyone of them and watching many YouTube reviews, reading many pro reviews I went for the Canon 100-400 ii. It will be here Monday and I can't wait!!

Thanks again for all the Information!!
Tom

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

wise choice grasshopper

tgreenhaw

One thing people don't talk about a lot is how closely the 100-400 Canon zoom can focus, about 3 feet at 400mm. It almost works as a macro lens without having to be an inch away from the subject. Take a look at minimum focus distance before making a decision.