Cool Design and gadgets Lastest news*: rebel XT's 1600 is pretty much what I use all the time with this lens

Since I mostly use wide-angle lenses, I was not willing to blow a ton on expensive/heavy telephoto lenses for occasional shots. Prior to owning this lens, I had a Sigma 70-300 APO zoom telephoto that produced good colors, but was essentially useless due to frequent camera shake. I sold the lens and got this Canon zoom.

a) Surprisingly, it CAN produce pretty sharp pictures if the subjects don't move fast. The sharpness is very comparable with two other lenses I own, the famed and breathtakingly sharp Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4. While the Tamron and Sigma get sharp shots without too much work, this Canon needs a bit of careful handling to get equally sharp shots even at the wide end. I use the word "can", because to achieve it you would either need a tripod or high ISO (my rebel XT's 1600 is pretty much what I use all the time with this lens).

b) The colors in bright light are almost always faded (sharp, but faded). It can be patially corrected in Lightroom, but a bit unfortunate since this lens really needs the bright light for a good shutter speed. Indoors, it produces good color balance/saturation, but struggles to have a decent shutter speed. Kind of catch-22 situation.

c) The construction is pretty cheap, but generally nothing to worry about if handled gently. However, the filter threads are thin plastic and I almost damaged the threads when putting on filters for the first time. I got a dedicated Sigma DG 58mm UV filter permanently affixed on it so that any other filters/screw hood will only go on the metal thread of the UV filter and not the lens thread directly. A metal UV filter is a must if you don't want to permanently damage the lens filter threads.

d) The opteration of the IS is quiet unless you are particularly listening to it. My Tamron's AF makes more noise.

e) After playing with this lens for sometime, I have come to the conclusion that IS is an absolute must on a zoom telephoto when hand held. Being the cheapest IS telephoto on the market today, there is really no equivalent for this in this price range.

f) IS has been of no use in freezing subject motion. While this is to be expected, it highlights how slow a lens this really is.

g) No hood comes with the lens, but I got a third party 77mm screw telephoto metal hood and step up adapter rings.

h) 1 year canon warranty sucks big time compared to the 6-year Tamron and 4-year Sigma (for DG lens).

i) this is a very light lens, much lighter than my sigma or tamron. Very easily carried around (hood might add a bit more bulk, but not too much).

In short, this lens performs great with regards to sharpness and IS. It leaves a lot to be desired in color saturation and flare control, almost always requiring some kind of post processing to achieve desired result.

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Cool Design and gadgets Lastest news*

11/04/2012

rebel XT's 1600 is pretty much what I use all the time with this lens

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