Canon 70-300mm IS USM How noisy is too noisy?

[Phill Mason]

Hi guys, I've just picked up a nearly new lens and the condition is mint, absolutely spot on, but my concern is the level of noise the image stabilizer makes.

I've searched online and seen that many people have mentioned the same thing, but of varying levels. It seems less of an issue for stills as the noise level isn't really a problem, but for movies on my 550D's which I use my camera's for most, this completely renders the IS feature useless.

Without being able to compare to a new one I have no reference of what is acceptable and what is "Blimey mate send it back that's knackered" if you know what I mean?

So mine does this;
When shooting stills with the IS off, complete silence and a totally acceptable AF motor sound - fine

When you switch IS on - the steadying wizardry only makes a noise when pushing the shutter half way to focus and stops a second or two after releasing, is this normal?

When shooting video though - I turn on the IS and it makes a constant noise. Does your Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens do this?

Thanks, I'd appreciate your feedback if you use this lens.

[J Davis]

All the IS lenses make noise to some degree ... but ... does it really matter?
Your mic shouldn't be anywhere near the camera anyway.

If you are crazy enough to want to do run'n gun with a shoulder mounted DSLR and
have an on camera mic then you not likely to be using your 70-300.
More like 17-30mm range.

[Kin Lau]

My 300/4L IS is quite noisy and the on-camera mike picks it up, but my Rode Videomic doesn't.

[Phill Mason]

Thanks for the quicks replies, much appreciated.

I'm filming mainly in the studio so all audio is off camera, I was just curious to see if others had the same noise levels and it would appear so, thanks.

[andykwilkinson]

Phill,

My Canon 70-200 F4 IS is pretty noisy too (so much so that I thought there was something wrong with it when I first got it). By comparison a 70-200 F2.8 IS and my 17-55 F2.8 IS are whisper quite. All my Canon lenses with IS do a terrific job in smoothing out the microjitters if I absolutely need to do stuff handheld/not on a tripod.

Longer lenses require the IS to do more "work" and also there seem to be well documented different noise levels between different Canon lens models.

Relax, enjoy the lens and use with double system sound when out and about if needed.

[TooTallTim]

Tamron VC is much louder compared to IS Canon lenses I've used, the on-camera mic picks up quite a bit of noise so it sounds like aircon running all the time. But as you shouldn't be using the on-camera audio anyway, there's no problem.