Marketed November 1998
#384309 UV1217
Purchased new from K&S Photo 1/29/2008 $1359
This is my third Canon Zoom Lens EF 100-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens. I had returned the last two to the store, Keeble & Shuchat Photography, 298 California Ave, Palo Alto, California 94306, because of very poor image quality. The serial numbers of those lenses are 382539 and 382176. These lenses produced very fuzzy and what appears to be a double image in the out of focus areas and no sharp delineation in the focused areas. The first two lenses were bad, this one is better but still exhibits the same doubling of the image in the out of focus areas. I borrowed a friends lens of the same model and her lens performed as expected. It produced very sharp images without the double out of focus image. I did not return this lens back to the store because of the very hard time I had with the last exchange. It appears that all three of these lenses have some sort of problem.
On March 10, 2008 Canon received my lens for evaluation and repair at a Canon Factory Service Center. The lens was calibrated and the focusing was adjusted to factory standards.
On March 12, 2008 Canon shipped the lens back to me at no charge.