Looking for a good zoom lens- suggestions?

[emma_01]

Hey ya'll!

I'm on the lookout for a good zoom lens for my Canon EOS Rebel XS. The catch- I'm a poor highschool student with lens lust! I'm a tad overwhelmed with the high price tags on these things and would appreciate some advice.

I was looking at the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM telephoto zoom lens and it fits my price range (sadly) but the reviews I've seen so far aren't amazing. Suggestions?? I mainly need it for sporting events.


Thanks
Emma

[dlambert]

The 55-250 is a higher-quality lens than the 75-300. The last time I checked, Adorama had these available refurbished for $200. Next up from there would probably be something like Tamron's new 70-300, and then Canon's 70-300 IS USM. Check out some reviews on those lenses to see if any of them look like winners for you. I owned the 55-250 for a while and traded up to Canon's 70-300.

All three of these are relatively slow, optically, so you'll probably have some success with them for outdoor (well-lit) sporting events, but indoor events will be tricky, since you don't have a wide enough aperture to shoot with a fast shutter speed without bumping your ISO up quite a bit.

[inkista]

Rock and a hard place. Sports (and particuarly low-light indoor sports) is probably one of the most demanding subjects on lenses, because you want reach, fast aperture, and fast AF lock all at once. Given that you're apparently looking in the under $300 range, you may only be able to get one of those three things.

The 75-300 III USM is an old warhorse who design goes back to the '80s. It's not particularly sharp and it's slow. But it has USM, so it will probably AF lock faster than the 55-250 IS. OTOH, the 55-250 IS has a newer optical design (specifically for a crop-body dSLR, not a film body), and is likely to give you better optical performance AND it's stabilized. My druthers would be to go for the 55-250 IS, and just accept that you're going to have a lower keeper rate because of the autofocus speed.

What you really want is a 70-200 f/2.8, which is going to be more than twice your budget, even if you go third-party "cheapie". There's really no good news for you, here.

The three main things you want to remember when shooting with a telephoto zoom are:

1) Without stabilization, you want your shutter speed to be at least 1/focal length or faster (e.g., if you're shooting at 300mm, then 1/300s is your minimum shutter speed) to eliminate camera shake blur. This is a general ballpark figure, and it does depend on having good handholding technique. If the lens is stabilized (either with IS or with a monopod), this limit can be lowered.

2) Lenses are rarely at their sharpest wide open--especially consumer-grade lenses. Stopping down to f/8 is likely to make your lens sharper than if you shoot wide open at the f/5.6 max aperture.

3) Note how 1 and 2 combined means that you're probably going to have to shoot at higher iso settings. Do not fear the settings above 200. Invest in noise-reduction software.

One more note, you may find it useful to use back-button autofocus, rather than the default use of the shutter button.

[Biomech]

I would say none, they suck. I had a lot of fail with zoom lenses this weekend, the sweet spots were VERY sweet, but each end was unusable, it reduced a 24-70mm to a 28-35mm :P I'm probably going to rant about it in the next few days once I've churned through this workload :P

[Izzy]

I went with a 55-250 Canon IS. I dont do much big lens stuff so it meets my needs for now. You will have to shop around quite a bit to find the right price. I think I paid $160 for mine new. Really I think that was too much. I say that because optically it is slow like the others have said. But it does focus fast and gives me acceptable image quality. More than I can say for my Tamron 28-200.

[RAWcop]

I have been using a Tamron 18-200 for my Canon 60D. It works great! The run about $299 US and ther eare always rebates for about $60 out there. I just used it for a recent trip and it was able to do what I needed.
The down side to it. It can be slow in auto focus, not a USM and no Vibration Compensation (or image stabilization).

Amazon.com: Tamron AF 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras: Camera & Photo

All of these pictures are used with my Tamron: Jamaica - a set on Flickr