Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM

Pros Incredibly sharp from edge-to-edge. Wide aperture. Supports drop-in filters. Optically stabilized. Built-in tripod collar.

Cons Very expensive. Limited close focus ability. Heavy. Bottom Line The Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM is an ultra-sharp telephoto lens with an ambitious aperture. It's absurdly expensive, but also a top-performing optic.

By Jim Fisher

The Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM ($5,999 direct) is an incredibly sharp, and incredibly expensive, telephoto lens for Canon D-SLR cameras. It captures twice as much light as the other 200mm prime lens in Canon's lineup, the EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM ($819.99), a less-expensive lens that can focus just a bit closer, but lacks image stabilization. If you're considering purchasing or renting the EF 200mm f/2L IS USM for professional work you'll be happy to know that it's very sharp from edge to edge, even at f/2, which earns it our Editors' Choice award.

The EF 200mm f/2L is big enough to ship with its own hard-shell carrying case. It measures 8.2 by 5 inches (HD) without its hood attached, and weighs in at 5.6 pounds. Attaching the hood extends the height by about 6 inches.  The front element is huge, but there's no filter thread; instead there's a rear drop-in filter holder that supports 52mm gelatin filters. A tripod collar is built into the lens; it can rotate for portrait or landscape shooting and locks into a place with a thumbscrew. The collar also features two slots so that you can directly attach a strap to the lens.

There are a number of control switches and buttons on the barrel. You can toggle manual focus and autofocus operation, and set the autofocus limit from 1.9 meters to infinity or from 3.5 meters to infinity. Other switches control the image stabilization mode and allow you to enable or disable that system, and there's a focus preset system. This lets you save a focus distance and rack back to it with the touch of any of the four push buttons located between the front of the lens and the manual focus ring.

I used Imatest to check the sharpness and distortion in images captured by the lens when paired with the full-frame Canon EOS 6D. Even at f/2 it's incredibly sharp from edge-to-edge. It notches 2,731 lines per picture height using a center-weighted testing method, well in excess of the 1,800 lines we require to call a photo sharp. Stopping down marginally improves the sharpness to around 2,800 lines, where it hovers through f/5.6. Distortion is completely negligible. The only optical demerit evident is the minimum focus distance, which is about 6.2-feet. The 200mm f/2.8 focuses a bit closer, 4.9 feet. This 200mm f/2L gets a lot of work shooting pro sports, where the minimum distance doesn't come into play, but it can be limiting if you're a fan of very tight portraiture. If close focus is your bread and butter, go for a macro lens; the Sigma APO Macro 180mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM is a great choice if you're looking for one with a similar focal length.

If you're a Canon shooter in the market for a wide-aperture telephoto lens, this is the one to get. Its price puts it out of reach of non-professionals and well-heeled enthusiasts, but if it's something that will only see occasional use, renting is always an option. It's readily available at rental houses for around $250 a week, a price that's easy to work into your rate for a paying gig. If you can live with a non-stabilized 200mm lens, the Canon's f/2.8 version is an affordable option, though most event shooters prefer the flexibility of a stabilized 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom. The lens is impeccably sharp and its f/2 design and image stabilization system make it possible to get a sharp shot in dim lighting, which makes it an easy choice for our Editors' Choice award.

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Canon EOS Rebel SL1

Pros Compact design. Touch screen. Quick to start and focus. 4fps continuous shooting. Smooth live view focus experience. Microphone input. Good high ISO performance.

Cons Limited Raw burst shooting. Pentamirror viewfinder. Fixed rear LCD. May be too small for some hands. Bottom Line Canon's high-performing EOS Rebel SL1 is the tiniest digital SLR you can put your hands on, but it may be too small for some hands.

By Jim Fisher

Canon bills the EOS Rebel SL1 ($649.99 list, body only) as the world's smallest digital SLR. There's no arguing about that; it's impressively small, making Canon's standard 18-55mm zoom lens look positively huge in comparison. The 18-megapixel camera uses the same size APS-C image sensor as the EOS Rebel T5i, but sacrifices the hinged screen and some physical controls. It's a top option if you want a really compact D-SLR, but it doesn't do quite enough to oust our Editors' Choice, the more versatile Nikon D5200.

Design and Features
The Rebel SL1 measures 3.6 by 4.6 by 2.7 inches and weighs just 14.4 ounces. Yes, it's amazingly small, but I would still like just a little bit more of a handgrip; it extends only to the same depth as the lens mount. The front of the pop-up flash juts out another half-inch or so. Adding a little more depth to the grip would make the camera a bit more comfortable to hold, but shooters with smaller hands will likely feel right at home.

Despite its size, the SL1 uses the same image sensor as the Rebel T5i, which is larger at 3.9 by 5.2 by 3.1 inches and heavier at 1.1 pounds. If you opt for a mirrorless camera you can get the same sensor size in a smaller package; our Editors' Choice, the Samsung NX300 is just 2.5 by 4.8 by 1.6 inches and 11.5 ounces, but it doesn't have any sort of viewfinder aside from its rear display.

You get a surprising number of physical controls packed into the svelte body, but you'll still be using the touch screen to adjust certain settings. On the top panel you'll find a three-stage power switch—it has settings for off, on, and video recording; that's integrated with the mode dial, which has scene settings in addition to more advanced shooting modes. In front of that is a dedicated ISO button, the lone control wheel, and the shutter release.

The Menu and Info buttons are around back, to the left of the eyepiece. To its right, there's the button that enables Live View for stills, or starts video recording when the camera is set to video mode. On the far right you'll find an AF point selection button and the exposure lock button. EV compensation gets its own button, as do image playback and delete. You don't get the four directional controls like you do on most D-SLRs, including the Pentax K-50; instead the 4-way pad is only used to navigate through menus.

At the center of the directional pad is the Q Set control; it activates a rear menu from which you can adjust the bulk of available settings. These include aperture, ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, flash compensation, image effects, white balance, bracketing, brightness and contrast, the metering pattern, the drive mode, the self-timer, the autofocus mode, and image quality. You can adjust these using the control wheel and navigate from setting to setting via the directional pad, but touch control is also supported. Touch is not active without first pressing the Q Set button, which prevents inadvertent changes to settings.

The 3-inch rear LCD is just as sharp as the 1,040k-dot screen on the T5i, and supports touch input. But it's not hinged like the T5i's screen. The fixed display helps to minimize the SL1's size, and can be used to adjust the focus point or even focus and fire the camera when working in live view mode. This is a feature that Canon offers in its D-SLRs that competing brands haven't yet been able to match; if you buy a Sony Alpha 58 or Nikon D5200 and attempt to touch the rear display, all you'll end up doing is adding a fingerprint.

There aren't a lot of bells and whistles. Wi-Fi, which is becoming more common in interchangeable lens cameras, is absent here. Having wireless capability would be nice, as the SL1's size is clearly intended to be a carry-everywhere SLR. Though you can add an Eye-Fi Mobi memory card to transfer photos over to your phone for immediate Instagramming, Facebooking, and Tweeting.

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