75-300 worth it?

Here's my situation. I am new to the SLR thing, having just bought a Digital Rebel a few weeks ago. When I bought the camera, I picked up a Canon 80-200mm lense that has worked very well for me so far. I was looking to get something with a bit more magnification and locally the most I can find for a reasonable price is the Canon 75-300. Is it worth another $200 to pick this lense up since I already have the 80-200 or should I save up and wait till I can afford something bigger, like in the 4-500mm range?
TIA

You'll hear a lot of opinions on this forum.

At least some of them will point out that for many people the upgrade to better lenses (e.g. the 'L' series) makes a lot of a difference in image quality. The other advantage is that these lenses (e.g. the 70-200 f/4 L at 500$ ) will stay with you all your photographic life, as they are good and durable enough.

What about taking a look at the 1.4 teleconverter in the meantime?

If it works on the 80-200 (ask your Canon rep whether it will still have autofocus on your camera, as you lose an f/stop when using it), then it will give you the extra reach.

If you decide to upgrade in the future, it will also work great on the 70-200 f/4 L, making it one of the sharpest 280 mm lens combos in Canon's 'budget' roundup.

When you decide for the 70-300 instead, get the IS version. That should really increase your chances to get shots where the light might not be sufficient for the 80-200.

If you decide to wait, there are also other manufacturers like Sigma that make achievable 500 mm lenses (achievable meaning below US$ 1,000 :lol

Best regards,
Andy

One thing immediately springs to mind Rik, and that is, what are you interested in photographing? Do you really need 500mm range? I like my 75-300 IS USM very much and the IS feature works very well for me as I don't hold a camera quite as still as I used to. As you are new to the hobby why not give it some time to find out what interests you, ie. Birds, Landscapes, Sports, Close-up work, etc. THEN you can better decide on the lens. Regards [F.R.]

Flyball Rebel wrote:
One thing immediately springs to mind Rik, and that is, what are you interested in photographing? Do you really need 500mm range? I like my 75-300 IS USM very much and the IS feature works very well for me as I don't hold a camera quite as still as I used to. As you are new to the hobby why not give it some time to find out what interests you, ie. Birds, Landscapes, Sports, Close-up work, etc. THEN you can better decide on the lens. Regards [F.R.]

I am not really new to taking pictures, just new to buying serious equipment with which to do it.
What I am into is nature photography...landscap​es and wildlife. I go out west at least once a year and take a lot of landscape and wildlife photos and I like to take bird photos at the lakes here in central Florida. I need a good long-range lens to help with skittish elk and such.
I had been using a Sony DSC F707, but its limitations were growing too frustrating, so I went with the Digital Rebel. Now I am in the process of collecting accessories for our trip to Utah in two weeks.

Followup on my previous post ... most likely the 10D will not autofocus with the 1.4 teleconverter (unless you tape some of the contacts), as the resulting f/stop (lens+1 stop) is higher than f/5.6.

You might also take a look at the Sigma AF 4.0-5.6 70-300mm APO Macro Super, it is ranked a lot better than the Canon 70-300 in lens tests (e.g. http://www.photozone.d​e/ )

Best regards,
Andy

I have a 75-300 4.0-5.6 lens and it seems like an OK fit for me. Most of my stuff is shot in the 50-80mm range, and for the ocasional "long shot" the lens work out OK as I shoot at f/8.0-11 and it appears to be pretty sharp at those apperetures. If you are going to use it extensively, go for an L lens. That, of course, also depends on your budget.
another option is the 100-400 lens - if you really need the reach.

L lense is way beyond my budgetary reach at the moment. I am thinking about getting a cheaper third party zoom lense for now, until I can afford something better. Something like the 100-400mm Phoenix maybe.

.i found the 80-200 (the II version) to be quite sharp,very contrasty and have strong colours + fast focussing

The 75-300 was not as sharp,had quite acurate colour with a nice warmth to it overall + slow focusssing
I had alot of duds with this lens but the shots that worked did look very nice.

Wether you upgrade to this lens or wait 'till you save more and get something better (like the 100-300),or something awsome(70-200/4L !! ) is a tough question
In my personal experience i'd say wait

Hi Rik,

I would recommend holding on to your dough. I have used the 75-300mm quite a bit since my girlfriend prefers it to my 70-200mm f/2.8L IS due to the weight factor. Obviously the 75-300 weighs a heck of a lot less.

Optically, though, I would say it's not a very good upgrade from your current glass. 100mm sounds like a lot, but between 200 and 300mm, it's really not a monsterous difference... I'd say it's more of a framing difference than a resolution difference. In other words, you could probably crop a sharp 200mm image and blow it up and have it look close to the 300mm image from the 75-300mm lens. The 75-300mm Canon is very soft at its larger apertures, though it's okay from f/8 to f/16 or so. You'll also see large amounts of purple fringing on bright objects (some call it chromatic abberation). Bokeh (the quality of out-of-focus objects) is pretty nasty looking.

Yes, I'm obviously not a big fan of the lens, but I'm not a lens snob. It's not the price, construction or lack of red stripe that makes this a poor lens. Just image quality. (The part-metal barrel and metal mount construction is actually quite good for a consumer lens.) Even my girlfriend, who has literally just started shooting with a DSLR, noticed how iffy the images looked. I'm not talking about some slight measurebator difference that you need to compare 100% crops to see.

If you save/invest that money you were going to spend on the 75-300mm and wait for something like the 70-200mm f/4.0 or a good Sigma (Sigma has some very good tele-zooms... unfortunately I can't tell you which ones they are since I don't have one), I think you'd be happier than ending up with two so-so zooms with similar ranges and very low resale value.

Thank you very much Shoot, I appreciate the advice.

IMHO, it does not really make sense. Optically, 80-200 and 75-300 are the same. 75-300 is good in the middle of its focal length. It's supposed to be very soft at the long end.

I was also told at B&H that the IS on 75-300 is not that good at all. It was of the first Canon IS. www.photodo.com confirms that too, it rates the IS version lower than non-IS.

[QUOTE="ShootTechPan"]​Hi Rik,

The 75-300mm Canon is very soft at its larger apertures, though it's okay from f/8 to f/16 or so. You'll also see large amounts of purple fringing on bright objects (some call it chromatic abberation). Bokeh (the quality of out-of-focus objects) is pretty nasty looking.

I can completely agree with this poster, I have just got rid of this lens, the amount of purple fringing on some of My shots was horrendous.

I have also had some purple fringing in very bright situations, but since I rarely shoot in bright sun light it's usually not a problem for me. I will say that the lens seems to be quite soft at full zoom, and the bokeh can be kind of "blotchy" at times. I can't really say that I'm disappointed with it because it costs so little, but I definitely find myself wanting to upgrade when I can afford it. Too bad the 100-400L costs more than my camera by several hundred dollars.

I went ahead and bought a Phoenix 100-400 to tide me over for now.
No, it's not a Canon lense, and no, it won't be anywhere near as good as a Canon lense, but it's what I can afford right now.