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Sep 27 2007

Weather Resistant (Sealed) Canon Lenses

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Which Canon lenses are weather resistant?

I see this question being asked quite often on the photography forums: And the answers are not accurate most of the time or they come in pieces. I also have received the similar questions after publishing my article about the Canon Lens Abbreviations here.

‘Weather resistant’ term is somewhat relative because it doesn’t define the amount or nature of water or dust that the lens or body is exposed to. It could be resistant to water under a shower bath (don’t know anybody shooting under shower bath though, poor example) or only resistant to moisture in room conditions. Same applies for dust, a desert storm or downtown New York?

Currently Canon has the largest line-up of weather resistant lenses. According to Canon, there are two levels of weather resistivity in their line-up. One group of weather resistant lenses is qualified to be highly water-and-dust resistant, while the other group is not that reliable (slightly weather resistant?) as we understand from this classification. And one problem here is nobody naturally wants to risk their water resistant lenses (and weather resistant bodies of course) to experiment and see if it really is resistant, or to what degree they stay resistant.

Here is the list of Weather Sealed Canon Lenses:

Highly Weather Resistant Canon Lenses

EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
EF 600mm f/4L IS USM

These four lenses have rubber linings on switch panel, exterior seams, and drop-in filter compartment. The moving parts such as focusing ring and switches designed not to let water and dust from entering.

Other Weather Resistant Canon Lenses and teleconvertors