Another newbie question on a lens

[kd5izq]

Hopefully you guys won't run me off for with all these questions. For my wife's film Rebel, about 4 years ago I bought her a (and I'm putting it exactly as it is on the lense so I get it right) Canon Zoom Lens EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 III. Is this a good lens? So far it has worked pretty well with the DRebel.

[Andy_T]

Hi KD,

welcome to the forum 8) .

There's two options for you, really.

The first one is to wait for the responses from other forum participants who own the lens. There certainly will be answers, but it might take some.

The other option would be to click on the 'search' button in the upper right corner of the screen and enter '75-300mm' as search term and 'Canon EOS' as forum.

Search turns up about 66 threads at the moment (including this one) with - most likely - a lot of information on the lens. It will also - most likely - include the responses you'll get in this thread from the last time the question was asked.

And you have it immediately. Good deal? :lol:

Best regards,
Andy

[kd5izq]

Sounds good to me. I'm just, litteraly, so dumb when it comes to photography at this point that I didn't even know for sure what to search for and if I came up with results, which one would be the same lens. I keep seeing posts about "F.1" or something of that nature and I feel really stupid because I don't know what that means.

[cecilc]

Is this a good lens? So far it has worked pretty well ....

You know, I've got that lens and used it exclusively for about a month until I got my Canon 100-400 L. Then I didn't use the 75-300 lens very often at all ....

And now I've picked up a Canon 80-200 L 2.8 lens .... and now I doubt that I'll ever use the 75-300 again.

So I've got it packed up to send to KEH to sell to them.

I thought the 75-300 was an OK lens .... it seemed to me to be a little soft focus-wise (and that may have been ME and not the lens!). But while I had it, it served its purpose adequately.

Samples:
Taken with the 75-300:
http://www.lassiterlbc.org/gameshots/gatech/photos/a17.jpg
Taken with the 100-400:
http://www.lassiterlbc.org/gameshots/playoff-h/crw_4774_rj122_std.jpg

Can you tell a difference in the two shots ? Of course, these have been processed and formatted for web viewing .....

[kd5izq]

Thanks, if I can find a place to post a couple of pictures I've taken with it then I can see what everyone thinks.

[kd5izq]

I can't really tell the difference! The second one seems to have done a little better job of blurring the background than the first, but thats about all I can tell.

[daaaveman]

Check out http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/easytxt.htm#Zstd and http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/showgallery.php?cat=27. That should give you all the info you need to get started with the research on this lens.

As far as general photography knowledge goes, review the links in this thread for a few months :D and you'll know a lot....

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22081&sid=25aad779205ff0280dd7758 98d2e39ad

BTW, where are you in Arkansas....I'm in St. Louis but an from Poplar Bluff, MO, very near Arkansas.......I also went to college in Springfield, MO so I've spent a lot of time near Arkanasas. The upper Buffalo River is some of my favorite country.

[Webster]

Can you tell a difference in the two shots ? Of course, these have been processed and formatted for web viewing .....

Well, in one shot the legs are tan, and the players have helmets...

Seriously, those two shots are terrific examples of the difference between L and non-L lenses. The 75-300 picture is in every way acceptable, ain't nothin wrong there. But the shot taken with the L lens just jumps out at us. It's that extra little bit of clarity and sharpness that makes it so much more than acceptable. And that makes us all want to spend all that extra money that we have laying around.

[kd5izq]

daaaveman - Fort Smith Area. Yeah, I'm already learning that this board is going to help a lot and I hope everybody reads this part - Thank you for not making me feel like an idiot.

Webster - I see what you mean now that you point it out. I'll probably never be a great photographer because I'm pretty color blind with yellow/orange, green/brown, and blue/purple but I'm going to do the best I can.

It is really nice to hear though that I don't just have a piece of junk lying around. I think this weekend or next the wife and I are going to drive up scenic Hwy 71 towards Fayetteville and stop along the way and take some shots at the various lookout points. If the sky clears up this evening like they said it might, there is a really great place to take photos in Van Buren that over looks the bigger town of Fort Smith so I may try and run by there. I've just got to get some of them posted somewhere so that I can link to them and show you folks here so I can get some critiques.

[Andy_T]

I'm just, litteraly, so dumb when it comes to photography at this point that I didn't even know for sure what to search for and if I came up with results, which one would be the same lens.


Actually, it's not all that difficult with photography.

The important thing is to not forget any of the numbers and letters when comparing different lenses.

When you say 75-300mm 1: 4-5.6 III (or 75-300 f/4-5.6 III, for short), this will determine the lens exactly enough.

There also is a 75-300 4-5.6 IS that has the additional Image Stabilizer feature. This lens is more expensive than the other one.

Optical quality, size and price of Canon lenses are most often determined by the 1: x (or f/x) value. The lower, the more expensive. If they bear a little 'L', even more expensive. Add the 'IS' to that, most expensive

E.g., there's a 80-200 f/4.5-5.6 lens (around 120$), there's a 70-200 f/4 L lens (about 550$, better) and a 70-200 f/2.8 L (about 1100 $, best). To top that is only possible by adding the IS letters ... then it's about 1600 $. You get the picture ... the lower the f/number, and the more letters added, the more expensive and also better those lenses are... :lol:

You can see tests of lenses at http://www.photozone.de/

Best regards,
Andy

[kd5izq]

Thanks, that makes more sense. So IS is simply image stabilization and while I know that makes a better shot, in theory, you should still be ok with my cheaper version lens then as long as on long full zoom shots you use a tripod to stabilize?

[cecilc]

.... as long as on long full zoom shots you use a tripod to stabilize?

Tripod .... monopod .... against a tree .... :D

But, yea ... the more stable the better.

My personal preference is a monopod ..... and I always use one. It's a rare sports shot that I take with the camera hand-held. I have a hard enough time getting good shots using the monopod - I can't afford to make picture taking any more problematic by not getting the camera stable .... :wink:

[kd5izq]

Ah, makes good sense. I may have to invest in a monopod eventually.

[kd5izq]

http://www.watertechinc.net/moonshot.jpg

What do yo think? This was shot with that lens.[/img]

[cecilc]

What do you think?

Definitely needs to be cropped ....

[kd5izq]

This is probably another dumb question, but how do you crop the image and not loose it's quality?

[cecilc]

Nope, not a dumb question ....

The easiest way (or, at least, the best way for me! I'm fairly postive that someone will come along with a much better way ....) is this:

Open up the photo that you want to crop or resize.
Create a NEW photoshop document sized to the size you want, and input the resolution you want (72 ppi; 300 ppi; etc).
Go to your already existing photo and drag that image into your new document - that photo will now take on the characteristics of the new image (as far as ppi is concerned). You may have to enlarge or reduce the size of the photo to your liking .....

Or, you could just use the crop tool .....

[kd5izq]

Ok. See, I've always used the crop tool in PS, but it seems like the quality goes down once you crop it that way.

[Webster]

It is better to use the crop tool, and then resize the image with Image->Image Size. That way you have full use of the controls in that tool. You can also ensure that no single resize step is more than 20%. Resizing in multiple steps is the greatest single technique for optimizing the quality of the resized image.

[kd5izq]

Thanks