absolutely, the color pops more, the autofocus is lightning fast now, and the IS is the latest so it's probably at least one more full stop or more handheld advantage, my L travels a lot with me, i'm not sure if i'll be bringing it to pixelmania as i will probably want the 70-200 f2.8 along for shows such as lion king and nemo, but if i have room in the bag i might bring the L, maybe rent the lens you are looking at, i believe kingdom camera carries it, you could then try it and see if you like it and if it's what you want, and if i bring my L along you could compare the two and see if you want to wait to spend the considerably more dollars on the L. a lot of people were ; beating on canon when it first hit the market for costing $1600, quite a jump up from the non L model, but when they get sample images and put it to the test on autofocus those complaints went away.