Canon 75-300mm non IS

Anyone have any luck with this lens at 300mm? It's a beautiful crisp lens but I have yet to get a good shot at 300mm.

Is it a crappy kit lens? I've tried all kinds of different exposures but with no luck. I've even setup on a tripod and gone down to f22.

I borrowed one once and managed to get some decent shots at 300mm. Not super sharp but presentable. I remember the AF was hunting those flying birdies like crazy....

Here's one of the better ones I got. Still crap in my opinion. f14, 1/500th, 300mm

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This was shot in less than ideal lighting conditions with my old 75-300, 1/160 @f5.6 300mm ISO-1600 handheld and is pretty reasonable I think, particularly for what is a cheap lens.

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Here is a couple more. They are just OK. If I enlarge them...all detail is lost. This is using a 50D ISO 400

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eForce,
Here is a comparison I did with my cheap 75-300 III USM and my 100-400L both set at 300mm at f/8 <-- click to see
For the 75-300 III very low price and very low weight its really great to my eyes

Here is one I took indoors with the 75-300mm kit lens.

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Erm... ins't shooting at 1/50 at 300mm stretching your capabilities or was that shot on a tripod.

artyman wrote in post #7665653
Erm... ins't shooting at 1/50 at 300mm stretching your capabilities or was that shot on a tripod.

sorry.....it's 1/500th

This lens just doesn't have any pop to colors. Something you can fix in PP, but this lens is not very ideal at all. These images seem a little soft to me as well.

eForce wrote in post #7665168
Here's one of the better ones I got. Still crap in my opinion. f14, 1/500th, 300mm

you are f14, when you should be closer to f8 and you are at 1/500, which is pushing shutter speed limits. If you had been at f8 and 1/2000, it likely would have been sharper. Also, you need to get in there and isolate your subject.

That said, on cheaper zooms, the long end is usually weak. You likely won't get great sharpness above about 225mm or so.

Also, stopping down does get you sharper, but only to a point. Usually about f11 it starts going the other way and gets softer. So f8-11 will be the sweet spot on most slower lenses like this. f14 and f22 will be really soft unless the shot requires it for extreme DOF.

I had the lens for about the 1st year of owning my XT, and was never really satisfied with the results. So I ended up selling it. For me the problem was my inability to hold the lens still enough to not have camera shake. I may have a few shots somewhere at 300mm that I liked, but not enough to justify keeping it.

tkbslc wrote in post #7667164
you are f14, when you should be closer to f8 and you are at 1/500, which is pushing shutter speed limits. If you had been at f8 and 1/2000, it likely would have been sharper. Also, you need to get in there and isolate your subject.

That said, on cheaper zooms, the long end is usually weak. You likely won't get great sharpness above about 225mm or so.

Also, stopping down does get you sharper, but only to a point. Usually about f11 it starts going the other way and gets softer. So f8-11 will be the sweet spot on most slower lenses like this. f14 and f22 will be really soft unless the shot requires it for extreme DOF.

Great advice....thx I'll go out and try again. I was stuck thinking that for far away subjects...you had to be f14 or lower because of DOF. I guess proximinty has no bearing on sharpness.

eForce wrote in post #7703831
Great advice....thx I'll go out and try again. I was stuck thinking that for far away subjects...you had to be f14 or lower because of DOF. I guess proximinty has no bearing on sharpness.

Faraway subject already have more DOF because they are far away! You want to use the tiny apertures like f14 -f22 if you want everything in focus from near to far. If you just want far OR near, then pick a larger one. I'd suggest using AV mode at F8 with that lens as I suggested earlier. Ideally, you would use the largest aperture available, but the lens you have will be sharper stopped down 1 or 2 stops.

Proximity does affect sharpness. There is diffusion due to the air as well as distortions from heat waves and air currents. Getting closer will improve the images.

Getting pictures that appear sharp and detailed or colourful have little to do with the lens and mostly to do with light and post processing. Getting side light will improve the surface detail in the subjects. Stronger colours will happen at the right time of day when the weather is right. A bit of sharpening after resizing and contrast/saturation adjustments will bring up the colours and texture detail.

The 75-300 isn't the sharpest lens around but it usually doesn't matter. You can make sharp looking photos with it anyway. Try using around f/9 and bringing up the ISO enough to get fast enough shutter speeds to avoid camera shake and subject motion. Stop down further if more depth of field is needed. Use Canon's DPP (or whatever your favourite raw converter) to correct the chromatic aberration too which plagues this lens and makes images appear less sharp.

Consider the lens hood for this lens too which will improve the contrast in some situations.