Canon EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III USM (1 Viewer)

[Andrew-Bede]

Hi,
Anyone any experience of this lens please? I am thinking of buying it as a decentish lens for my 350D. I need something with this sort of range but being a newbie with SLR I would like to get people’s views before I buy. All opinions welcome, if not this any suggestions? One thing going for it is that it is in the right price range! Also should I get a lens hood for it? What difference do they make when photographing birds?

Thanks for any help.

Andrew-Bede.

 

[robski]

It's OK for your first lens - a good lens for the price - you should be able to pick up a second hand one cheap on ebay. if you can pick up for less than £100 you have a bargain.

strengths - very sharp at 75mm and still sharp at 200mm.

weakness - become soft but OK stopped down at 300mm.
does suffer colour fringing in high contrast shots.
Auto focus is slow compared to ring USM AF.
Build quaility compared to more expense lens.

But thats typical of cheap lens.

If your are used to the 350D kit lens then it is better than that.

Another good cheap option is the Sigma 70-300 APO II.

Robert

 

[condyk]

I think you will get frustrated quite quickly. 300mm is too short for most birding, unless you are into zoo and garden shooting, and you really want to look at 400mm and over. Also, all the cheaper zooms suffer with softish performance at 200mm and over. The Canon 75-300mm isn't your best open if budget is fixed. Look at the Canon 100-300 USM and the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Super II but always remember that for birding you will eventually want to increase length to get anything like consistent results. However, use the lens and camera well and you may be surprised at what some of mthese lenses can produce.

 

[Melproudfoot]

Hi,
Anyone any experience of this lens please? I am thinking of buying it as a decentish lens for my 350D. I need something with this sort of range but being a newbie with SLR I would like to get people’s views before I buy. All opinions welcome, if not this any suggestions? One thing going for it is that it is in the right price range! Also should I get a lens hood for it? What difference do they make when photographing birds?

Thanks for any help.

Andrew-Bede.

Andrew, you have some good comments here which pretty much give the picture! I tested both the canon and the sigma low cost 70-300 on my 20d. They both perform about the same, I went for the Sigma because it cost less than the canon and it had a macro (Sigma f4-5.6 70-300mm APO Macro super). The macro is fantastic, much better performance than the general lens performance (see the attched picture).

But the comments from the others are correct, I got my lens as a first long lens, playing with camera's for ever but never had a long lens need until I got interested in birds. I find the lens OK and use it a lot hand held with OK results.

With the 1.6x effect of the half size (against 35mm) sensor you get equiv. of 112-480mm. By the way it will not take any of the Sigma teleconverters as the rear element sticks out too far.

You have to watch this focal length thing, it can get to be a bit of an compulsive. Since getting this I have also got a Sigma 170-500mm and a x2 converter - this should be fine for long distance birds as it gives 1600mm! But as the guy's said these lenses are only OK, and you loose autofocus with the converter, which is a shame as the manual focus is not great, it needs very small movements of the focus ring.

But it works and I have got pictures that I could not have got without it.

Currently I am working on attaching the 20d onto my Meade ETX90-EC telescope, about 2000mm, this looks promising but only just got the adapter and its misty today (Urrrrg!)

All the best

Mel

 

[Andrew-Bede]

Andrew, you have some good comments here which pretty much give the picture! I tested both the canon and the sigma low cost 70-300 on my 20d. They both perform about the same, I went for the Sigma because it cost less than the canon and it had a macro (Sigma f4-5.6 70-300mm APO Macro super). The macro is fantastic, much better performance than the general lens performance (see the attched picture).

But the comments from the others are correct, I got my lens as a first long lens, playing with camera's for ever but never had a long lens need until I got interested in birds. I find the lens OK and use it a lot hand held with OK results.

With the 1.6x effect of the half size (against 35mm) sensor you get equiv. of 112-480mm. By the way it will not take any of the Sigma teleconverters as the rear element sticks out too far.

You have to watch this focal length thing, it can get to be a bit of an compulsive. Since getting this I have also got a Sigma 170-500mm and a x2 converter - this should be fine for long distance birds as it gives 1600mm! But as the guy's said these lenses are only OK, and you loose autofocus with the converter, which is a shame as the manual focus is not great, it needs very small movements of the focus ring.

But it works and I have got pictures that I could not have got without it.

Currently I am working on attaching the 20d onto my Meade ETX90-EC telescope, about 2000mm, this looks promising but only just got the adapter and its misty today (Urrrrg!)

All the best

Mel

Thanks for this Mel, especially about the teleconverter as I was thinking of getting one! What is the converter that you have got? I presume the Canon one? I would be very interested in your comments on this. I too have found the macro setting to be excellent. Cheers,
Andrew-Bede

 

[Simon S]

It's a bit soft at 300 mm where you will find yourself all the time.
Try the Sigma 70-300 APO . Its focus is slow in comparaison but the glass is better.