Any experience with the 70-300 DO?

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Just wondering if anyone has used this. Seems to be a great walkaround outdoor lens. Don't know about sharpness or focus speed, though. Anyone want to give me some general opinions of it? I thought it would work well for my outdoor weddings, no? Don't need fast lenses for the outdoor ones, you know.

Thanks guys.

[Skip Souza]

I love mine. Focus speed is good and the IS is awesome. It will never be quite as sharp as your 100-400 L or 70-200 L wide open. I chose it for it's compactness.
This link (http://www.e-fotografija.com/artman/publish/article_306.shtml)provides an interesting comparison.
You also may want to consider the new 70-300 IS for a lot less money.
Here are a couple of examples from the 2005 Laguna Seca MotoGP

[condyk]

Nitsch took one travelling and he may have some samples so worth maybe a PM to him.

Like the 17-85 IS this is another lens I like the idea of, for exactly the reasons Skip states, but have so far stuck with the EX or L options for a little better optical quality.

Every buy is a compromise and this seems an attractive option if a high degree of portability is a criteria.

[Jesper]

I have the 70-300 DO.

Because it's so small, it's a very good travel lens. I wouldn't want to use a big, heavy, conspicuous white lens when I'm walking around in a country like India, for example - tourists already attract enough attention there...

However, I'm not terribly impressed by the sharpness and contrast of the lens. I've tried a 300 f/4L once and the difference was obvious (well, ofcourse it's not really a fair comparison - non-L zoom lens against L prime...). If your prime concern is image quality instead of portability, a 70-200 f/4L (maybe with 1.4x TC) would probably a better choice.

The IS on the 70-300 DO works great. The AF is fast, but I rarely do fast action photography, so I can't really say if it's good enough (and ofcourse it also depends on the body you're using it on).

[chansh]

I love my DO. It not as sharp as the L lenese.But it very good. Foucus is fast. This is my most used lens.

[chansh]

And compare it with a L lens.

[nitsch]

As Dave mentioned above I bought one recently to take travelling with me around British Columbia and I have been very impressed with it's performance. It's size and discreet nature make it perfect for travelling. I find it to be sharp even at 300mm and it quickly snaps into accurate focus even in low light. The IS is simply amazing, I don't think I could ever go back to a non-IS lens now - I have been spoilt! It is also fantastic build quality and like it's L brothers comes complete with the Hood and lens pouch. Admittedly the lens is a compromise and it's obviously not going to be as sharp as say a 300mm prime but if you want a top quality 300mm compact zoom lens then there is no better choice IMHO. It is expensive but I think reasonable value for the quality you get, it was a fairly substantial purchase for me but I have not regretted buying it once. I had read mixed reviews before I bought it but made sure I got it from somewhere I could return it to in the event that I wasn't happy. As soon as I tried it out for myself though I knew it wasn't going back!

I do still want to get the 100-400 L as I find myself becoming more and more interested in wildlife photography but would like to keep the 70-300 DO as well as I think I would use it on different ocassions.

I don't have any 100% crops to hand as I am at work but if you are interested I can upload some samples later. Here is a reduced size shot of a Grey Wolf and the Orca shots I have uploaded over the last few days in the Nature forum are with this lens too (all taken at full 300mm).

http://www.nitsch.co.uk/canada/images/day02_5_grey_wolf_on_grouse_mountain_web.jpg

[nitsch]

Chansh, have you got any test shots with a better exposure/less noise to demonstrate the sharpness? I think you should be able to get much better results than that. If I get a chance I may try and put some together over the weekend.

[buze]

I have the 70-300 DO for a few months and I'm not impressed, at all. I think the ratio of keepers is very very low. For one thing it's a very slow lens at f5.6 so even with IS at 300mm in the shadows what you usualy get is a nice sharp (if you are lucky) background and a blur where your subject was.
Also, the AF is very unreliable; I estimate that in 5 shots, 1 is nice and sharp, 2 are "almost" very sharp and the rest is quite soft.
I have been able to see that the 70-300 has very little precision in the AF with my prism focusing screen, it takes 2 or 3 half-presses to align the prisms sometime.

So yes, I have a total of a handful of great, crisp sharp shots with this lens, and that's all. I tried several times to really force myself to use it, and everytime the results were substandard.

So all in all, now is not really the good season to sell a 300m zoom second hand, but it will certainly go in the spring.

[nitsch]

Buze why have you still not got your lens fixed? :rolleyes: Every time you post on the 70-300 DO you make the same comments and yet you do nothing about it even though it is clear you have a (very) faulty lens. Your experience is not representative of a good copy of this lens. I have yet to miss focus on any shots with the DO even in low light.

[buze]

How the hell do I explain that to canon ? Do you think they are actualy going to do anything with a description like that ?

[nitsch]

Get them to test it over a series of shots or better still just get it replaced by the shop you bought it from. It's far too much money to spend on a lens that doesn't work properly and it's not fair to sell it on IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go! I think your comments are as valid as anyone elses as they represent your real world experience of this lens. However, I also think that if you read this thread in isolation it isn't clear that your experience is not the norm for this lens and I believe that this can be misleading to a reader who is trying to form an opinion of its capabilities. I have no motivation for making this lens out to be better than it really is, but when I was researching it before I bought it I got really frustrated reading so many conflicting views.

[ron chappel]

Buze i think you should ask canon at least.
From what i understand about focus accuracy settings and the focus algorythms on EF lenses, it could be that the lens is simply adjusted too much for speed and not enough for accuracy. It's worth asking to be on the safe side .Others do seem to be getting consistant results from theirs

Nitsch- i'm curious how this lens compares to the sigma 70-300 APO.I seem to recall you had some of the best images i've seen from the sigma - how does it measure up to the ' DO '?

[nitsch]

Hi Ron, as you know I really liked the Sigma APO and have high praise for it. On a budget the Sigma APO is fantastic, I'm still amazed at its performance relative to its price.

Optically the DO is much sharper at the long end than the APO, however the gap narrows in the 70-200 range where the APO was very sharp indeed although the DO still has the edge. Focusing on the DO is much faster and quieter. Build quality is not comparable - the APO is well built for the price but the DO is rock solid. They share the same max apertures but where the APO required a shutterspeed of 1/500 at 300mm to completely eliminate camera shake the DO can go down to about 1/60 and still produce sharp shots. However depending on the amount of subject movement you may not want to go this slow as Buze pointed out above.

Basically the DO is better than the APO in every respect except cost where the APO in unbeatable in "bang for your buck" terms. To put it into perspective, the DO cost me over 7 times more than I paid for the APO but it is not 7 times better! ;-)

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Well, I thought it might be a good walkaround and maybe good for family stuff (which it would), but if I ever wanted it to do some weddings, from what some people *coughbuzecough* are saying, I won't get that *ultimate* image quality that I need for someone's big day. I know my 70-200 will do it, but the weight was an issue for me. That's a hefty lens, and after I did my first wedding with it, my arms were KILLING me. I had to hold it almost the entire time. I'm just not sure what the answer is. I only have one body, and I don't want to miss any shots by switching lenses in the middle of a wedding. The family would KILL me. Any other suggestions for something other than a big white log to carry around? Remember...weddings.