That’s a dramatic headline but, never before having had a lens like this, it’s the most accurate way that I could think of to sum it up. Canon’s RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L IS USM is something of a conundrum. It covers a range of focal lengths that I find extremely useful in a lot of the work that I currently do and, paired with the RF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM, it is a valuable item in my travelling kit bag. I have shot pictures with it that I would simply not have been able to without hauling some incredibly heavy (and expensive) lenses around the world.

Do I love this lens? No. Do I appreciate it? Yes… with bells on.

In the past I have used fixed telephoto lenses ranging from the small EF 300mm f4L (which I still own) through various versions of the EF 300mm f2.8L (which I don’t) to three different EF 400mm L lenses (none of which remain) to the mighty but ridiculously heavy EF 200-400mm f4 (which has also been sold). All of them are compromises in their own way and all but the 300mm f4 are too bulky and too heavy to travel with in the way that I currently need to. I am tempted by the RF 100-300mm f2.8L (despite the price tag) along with an RF 1.4x extender but I thought that before I spent that kind of money I’d try the 100-500 and see what I could do with it. I’m getting some great images – albeit with quite a few compromises. I shoot a lot of pictures in pretty low light. Luckily my subjects are rarely fast moving and so the image stabilisation married to some pretty high ISOs mean that I can shoot with the 100-500 – even if I have to use a monopod much of the time.

Before I bought the 100-500 I tried one out for a week last September/October and took it on a trip to Rome and the Caucasus. I wasn’t bowled over by it but it did a good job and so, after reverting to using my old EF 300mm f4 on a couple of trips in between I decided to buy one. That was five months ago and it has travelled with me continuously ever since. At 500mm the maximum aperture is f7.1 and so I find myself regularly shooting at 6400 ISO and on occasions right up to 12,800 and even venturing up to 25,600 in one particularly dark cathedral.

So what do I think of it? There are definite pluses and minuses and in its favour we have a brilliantly useful range of focal lengths, excellent sharpness, fast and accurate focusing (for what I do), reasonably light weight and a not-too-shocking price tag. This is a Canon L series lens and, quite frankly, I’d be disappointed if it didn’t tick all of those boxes by default.

On the negative side:

• The biggest disadvantage is the f4.5 to f7.1 variable maximum aperture. This is the first variable aperture lens that I have owned for a very long time and it has taken a bit of getting used to, even without f7.1 being rather slow to be using in low light.
• The zoom ring Tavel is quite long and I find it extremely difficult to go from 100mm to 500mm with single twist and so most of the time I am using at least two motions to go from one end to the other.
• The adjustment to stiffen the zoom ring needs the ability to actually lock it. Even set to the firmest setting I find that the lens zooms out as I walk with it attached to a camera and over my shoulder on a strap.
• The ring that I use to vary the under/over exposure is back against the camera body and that’s different from all of my other RF lenses and so I don’t find it to be an ergonomic or natural position.
• The tripod collar doesn’t go tight enough. When using this lens on a monopod I’d like to be able to lock the ring in place.
• The opening in the lens hood to allow for the rotation of filters has absolutely no use for me and so I have ended up with a bit of tape over it. Maybe some sort of lock on the MkII version of the lens or even the hood?

I don’t think that any manufacturer has ever produced a perfect piece of kit. This lens represents a series of compromises and I doubt that I will ever get to a stage where I don’t think about some or all of them.

Like most photographers I have an opinion on the lens that I’d like my chosen manufacturer to produce and there are two options for this particular sort of shooting that I’d love to see. The first is an RF 100-300 f4L with a built-in 1.4x extender and the second is a fixed and super lightweight RF 300mm f4L which is compatible with a 1.4x extender. I think that either option would be very useful when I’m travelling for work.

The photograph above was part of a set that I delivered from a two hour service which took place in the National Arena in Kingston Jamaica. Most of the time I shot with two Canon R6 MkII cameras with the 100-500 on one and a 24-105 on the other. Once the sermons and readings were over and I had they key frames I swapped the two lenses out for an RF 70-200 f4L and an RF 14-35 f4L and went and shot pictures of other participants in the service. The 100-500 is quite light for what it delivers but the 70-200 is brilliantly lightweight and amazingly sharp; such a perfect travel lens that I haven’t packed my 70-200 f2.8L for over two years now.

Technical details: The photograph of the Archbishop was shot at 500mm, 1/250th of a second at f7.1 at 6400 ISO on a Canon R6 MkII. The incense burning was shot at 1/640th of a second at f4 on 6400 ISO at 200mm on a Canon R6 MKII with an RF 70-200 f4L lens. The RAW files were converted in Adobe Camera RAW with a small amount of (non-AI) noise reduction, some sharpening and a tweaked white balance