I just got a free 75-300mm Ultrasonic, is it good?

haha thats true, with no hockey practice three times a week, i suppose i will be on here a lot.

free is always good!

KROHN27,
Sorry to hear about your collar bone (high sticking? ).

Here are a couple of shots I recently posted on the forum taken with the newer version of that lens. Here is a shot with a 75-300 lens and here is another shot with a 75-300
Its not the best but it can take some nice photos and its real light compared to some other zooms (a real plus in your situation). The photo you posted looks like the one I used on my old Elan IIe film camera.
Enjoy your lens

Thanks John, nah i just plowed into someone a bit to hard i suppose. but anyway thanks for those pics. They were useful. I might go to some
HS vball games this week (if i can lift the cam by then) and try out the lense there

It's the upper end of a consumer grade lens. It is soft past 200mm and suffers from low contrast and CA. Sigma 70-300 APO DG makes a much better value/bang for the bucks.

Having said that, I think it's worth every penny you paid for it.

I had a 55-200 USM temporarily, and I thought it was junk (and I'm an amateur, although I seem to have high needs, LOL), very soft at 200mm, and not very sharp imo.

I'm going for a sigma 70-300 APO for my first telephoto lens. Once I've got a feel of the telephoto world, I'll probably upgrade to a 70-200L 2.8 IS or something and an extender or something. The cheapo lenses seem really slow (talking about aperture on them here), which can really suck when shooting indoors (outdoors too, but mostly indoors.)

Tee Why wrote in post #2033214
It's the upper end of a consumer grade lens.

Tee.............isn't it middle of the consumer grade?

75-300 IS was the upper until the 70-300 came out wasn't it?

AlexMa wrote in post #2033692
Tee.............isn't it middle of the consumer grade?

75-300 IS was the upper until the 70-300 came out wasn't it?

Oh, I'm thinking the 75-300 without USM was low level, the one with USM mid level, and the IS version is the upper consumer grade level. Sorry for the confusion.

Take some pictures and post them...then we will now if its any good. In my book, "free' is always good....LOL

It's the non-USM version, and has various well-publicised criticisms, but for all that it is a decent enough lens, and as has been pointed out, free is good. by the time you feel this lens is not good enough for you, you'll have had plenty of use out of it.

Remember at 300mm you most likely will need a tripod

well i cant do much with my arm, but i will go prop the camera on something and post some pics.

What really matters is that the lens works well for you. Free is always good, and anything that makes you explore photography more is also good. Have fun. I used mine for a while and loved it, until I picked up some L glass. Now I let my gf use it so she leaves my 70-200mm f4 L alone.

Mine makes a great micro aquarium (but then it don't work anyway) I found out that it don't swim to good.

Free = good plus its atleast cash when sold

I've not used the lens but from the many reviews I read, these are my conclusions. Owners may correct me or even bash me up for this
- great reach for the price (in your case even more so coz of the price)
- not the fastest lens would be an understatement. Outside is the only place and sunny days are great.
- beyond 200mm is not the strong point of the lens.

And I have seen many good shots with this lens. As long as the lens is used within its comfort zone, you have a good thing going.