question on zoom lens

I still have my kit lens and one of them is the canon 75-300mm lens and with me not having a whole lot of exp under my belt I was wondering how can I correct not getting sharp shots when zooming in. I do understand when u zoom and apply mag to a subject u also magnify other effects like camera shake etc but even when using a tripod and making sure everything is solid I still get photos that r soft and cant figure out why. Is it the quality of the glass or user error ? Im trying to best to figure all this out seeing that were going out to Yellowstone in less than two weeks and wanna do the best with what I have thou I am thinking about reting some better glass any opnions advice would be appreciated!

it is most likely a combination of the 2. That glass is about as low of quality of a zoom as you can buy from Canon. It is soft. Some things that can help is getting the exposure closer to correct so that you dont lose clarity when trying to fix it in post. Underexposing can really degrade your shots when brightened in post.

The image quality at the ends of long range zoom are usually very soft, if not bad, it's not about you.
You have a zoom lens witch cover a long range of focal length, so it's a compromise between the possibility to cover almost every things and image quality, so it's normal that at 300mm your picture are soft, you can increase the sharpness by stopping down the aperture like f/8 but do not expect a huge jump of image quality

if I was to rent a lens for our vaca what would u guys recommend and which sitte?

tulsatom wrote in post #16937045
if I was to rent a lens for our vaca what would u guys recommend and which sitte?

depend what you are doing/interest in photography ...
Tell us what you like to do and we will help you
About the website http://www.lensrentals​.com/ are very well known to be serious and helpful, you can call them if you need more advice.

well were going on a once in a lifetime trip to Yellowstone and I have it planned to do a lot of landscape and the very good possibility of wildlife as well my very again unexsperienced plan is for the landscape side of things do a lot of expsosure stacking for landscapes and for wildlife just attempt to get some god clean shots

heres my flicker by the way https://www.flickr.com​/photos/124480124@N04/

What is your current lens lineup? Also what body?

RHChan84 wrote in post #16937099
What is your current lens lineup? Also what body?

rebel t3 not t3i lol and the 55mm kit and 300mm kit

I have been very pleased with the 55mm kit lens but ben told it gets better as these lenses r not of high quality so I really wanna see the difference

18-55 is a pretty good lens so the wide angle is covered but if you want telephoto, rent a 70-300 Tamron or Canon. The 75-300 is one of the cheapest telephoto lens and it's cheap for a reason.

If you want an all-in-one then rent the Tamron 18-270.

Or is you plan on switching lenses, Sigma 50-500 has some good reviews but it's big and bulky.

If you wanted to buy without breaking a big budget, then check out the 55-250. Very good lens. Less zoom than the 75-300 but still sharper to get to 250 and cropping a little.

If you have the funds to rent a lens for your trip, I would suggest the Canon 100-400mm. Or, better yet the Tamron 150-600, if you can find someone who has it available to rent.

I was thinking this https://www.lensrental​s.com …on-100-400mm-f4.5-5.6l-is I can rent it for less than 150.00 for the duration of our trip

tulsatom wrote in post #16937119
I was thinking this https://www.lensrental​s.com …on-100-400mm-f4.5-5.6l-is I can rent it for less than 150.00 for the duration of our trip

That's also another good choice.

would that canon be a night and day difference compared to the zoom I have now?

tulsatom wrote in post #16937119
I was thinking this https://www.lensrental​s.com …on-100-400mm-f4.5-5.6l-is I can rent it for less than 150.00 for the duration of our trip

Yes it's a very good compromise choice, for wildlife and even portrait (i have this lens, don't use a lot, but nice lens), you just now need to add a wide angle for landscape

tulsatom wrote in post #16937130
would that canon be a night and day difference compared to the zoom I have now?

And then some!!!