Review by Klaus Schroiff, published April 2010

You may forgive us that we've reused most of the corresponding full format review here.

Introduction

The build quality of the 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L II is truly superb. It's mostly made of tightly assembled metal parts - there's no wobbling whatsoever and the rubberized control rings operate very smooth. Just like its predecessors the lens does not extend during zooming nor focusing. Thanks to an IF ("inner focusing") system the front element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem.

The lens incorporates a new third-generation Image Stabilizer (IS) with a claimed gain of 4 f-stops for hand held photography (at cost of shutter speed). This is indeed achievable in field conditions. Unlike the consumer variants the IS system has 2 modes - a normal one for static shooting (horizontal + vertical stabilization) and a panning mode (horizontal OR vertical stabilization - the panning direction is automatically detected). It also features tripod detection so the IS can stay activated here.

Typical for most modern EF lenses it features a ring-type USM drive which offers near silent and extremely fast AF operations. The AF accuracy was great during our field tests. The 70-200mm mk II is compatible to both the EF 1.4x (-> 98-280mm f/4) and EF 2x (-> 140-400mm f/5.6) tele-converters. Live-View AF is decently fast although not comparable to the normal phase detection AF - this is more a limitation by the camera rather than the lens though.

The similarities between the various 70-200mm f/2.8 variants are quite interesting so let's have a short look at the paperwork here before going on to the test results.