Canon EF 300 mm f/2.8 L IS II USM review - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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Canon EF 300 mm f/2.8 L IS II USM

3 February 2012

Arkadiusz Olech

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Fast telephoto lenses like showing some “colouring” behind the focal plane. In fact such a phenomenon should be described exactly this way because the longitudinal chromatic aberration, a term often used in this chapter, is something different after all. That aberration can be corrected in a perfect way (because it concerns the centre of the frame and the focal plane precisely) and this “colouring” in fuzzy areas can be nevertheless very intensive. Finishing this digression about the proper terminology we can say that in the case of the Canon 2.8/300 both the longitudinal chromatic aberration (in the strict sense of this term) and the colouring effects in defocused places are negligible. The photo below shows it very clearly.

Canon EF 300 mm f/2.8 L IS II USM - Chromatic and spherical aberration

Exactly the same thing can be said about the lateral chromatic aberration. Both on the APS-C sensor and on full frame it is situated near 0.04% or a bit lower so it remains negligible.

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The correction of the spherical aberration should be described only in superlatives as well. Defocused images of a diode, caught in the front the focal plane and behind it, are very much the same – almost similarly homogeneous, without any noticeable rings, borders or interferences. Only in the image behind the focal plane you can notice a bit lighter ring but such an effect is so slight that it can’t change our positive assessment.