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OK, but outdated

Started Aug 4, 2014 | User reviews
quiquae Senior Member • Posts: 2,265
OK, but outdated
1

Good:

  • Dirt cheap (< $150 new)
  • Good IQ for the price
  • Decent construction (all plastic, which might bother some people--it doesn't bother me)
  • Light and small
  • Great range
  • IS is useful

Not so good:

  • Slow and noisy autofocus--not optimal for randomly moving subjects, and forget about live view or video
  • No full time manual focus, which would have made the rickety autofocus more tolerable
  • Front filter rotates, complicating use of PL filte
  • Contrast is not the best
  • Sharpness decreases above 200mm, more pronounced at infinity than up close
  • Generally soft wide open; need to stop down to around f/8 for best results
  • Small maximum aperture (an unavoidable side effect of being light and small)

Although the lens is OK for the very low price, EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM is an even better bargain, as it significantly improves on all but the last point with better construction for only ~$300 new. You should be able to appreciate the image quality difference with no pixel peeping--and the AF improvement will be obvious before you even take a shot.

Conclusion: this was an good choice before the STM version came out. Today, it is still a good choice, but only for people who have a serious cash problem. Everyone else, save up a bit more and get the STM version.

 quiquae's gear list:quiquae's gear list
Canon EOS R5 Canon EF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM Canon EF 70-200mm F4L IS USM Canon EF 16-35mm F4L IS USM Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS II +6 more
Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II
Telephoto zoom lens • Canon EF-S • 2044B002
Announced: Jun 13, 2011
quiquae's score
3.0
Average community score
4.3
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