Canon announces the new 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II lens with an LCD display

The 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM has been one of the oldest and one of the most popular zoom lenses from Canon. It now sees an update and it is the first ever lens from the company to sports an LCD panel to show lens-related information. The new EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM has been updated on the inside as well. You now get 17 elements in 12 groups. That’s two more elements compared to the previous model. There’s also a new nine-bladed circular aperture replacing the earlier lens’ eight-bladed aperture. The new lens features Canon’s Nano USM autofocus drive technology. The only other lens with this new tech is the 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens which launched earlier this year. The Nano USM tech provides the speed of a USM motor for still imaging, coupled with the smooth and near-silent focus adjustment of an STM motor for video capture. Basically, it’s a silent lens. The onboard LCD is the main attraction though. It can show a bunch of information on the lens itself rather than the camera body. It shows the current focal length, focusing distance and the degree of camera shake being corrected. The lens also features both a four-stop image stabilizer function and a full-time manual focus design, which allows the user to adjust focus even while in autofocus mode. The lens is priced at $550 (around Rs 36,300) and goes on sale from November in the US. Expect the lens to arrive in India soon after the US launch.