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My husband is looking to buy my Christmas present. We're on a budget. He found a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens for $200 on Amazon. The reviews are good, but they're mostly from folk new to photography. I don't have a zoom at all. Better than nothing? Worth the money? What do you think?
Here's one that shows one problem I have with the lens, and that is ugly bokeh. It takes a certain type of picture and a certain type of background, but when that combination occurs the lens doesn't seem to handle it very well:
The background is very "busy", and it's just the right distance from the subject to not be blurry enough, so it ends up looking ugly (IMO). But this has only happened with a small number of pictures I've taken with the lens, and in most situations it's fine. That's also a crop of a larger picture and the lens was zoomed in as far as it would go, which probably isn't helping matters. You can see the tree bark and even the bird are just not very sharp. I've had better luck with the lens if I don't zoom all the way in to 250mm, and instead stop a little shy of that mark.
Judging from both professional and amateur reviews of the lens, and the examples posted by Lamplight above, this lens is an absolute no-brainer at this price-point. You'd probably need to spend at least $500 to do any better than this.
I agree with the above. Anything better will cost more. Here are some I have taken with mine. The one of Alcatraz was taken from such a distance that I had to take it with the longest lens I had.
I really wish you'd include your EXIF data on your images, Timm. I'm particularly interested in that skater shot. That must have been a fast shutterspeed to be able to freeze the skater in the air like that. Not easy to do in an indoor venue which I'm assuming that is. Great shot.
^Yeah I think Flickr strips it on the free accounts. Annoys me, too, but not so much that I'll actually do anything about it. And I'm a little too lazy to look it up and post it for every shot I post - but I'm always happy to provide it if asked.
Wasn't a superfast shutter speed ( 1/250 ), but obviously fast enough. I was quite happy with it.
f/5.6, ISO 800, zoomed to 194mm.
And yes, it was indoors -- at the Greensboro (NC) Coliseum. Alissa Czisny during her long program that won her the U.S. Championship back in January.
Well, I'm getting pretty excited. My husband ordered it yesterday.
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