Daz

© Daz

Posted: 11 November 2007

Tags: canon, lens

Category: Lenses

Part deux in my series of lenses. This was the second lens I acquired, and by far my least-used. Hello Mr Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM.

What is it?

The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM. It’s basically a long-range budget zoom.

(stock image)

At 75mm it has a maximum aperture of f/4; and at 300mm, f/5.6. These numbers are annoyingly small, especially if you want to shoot moving stuf and/or in dull conditions. If you’re shooting still objects on sunny days then you may be alright

Standard photo

This photo is taken with my point-and-shoot Fuji F30. It’s a relatively non-descript photo of some autumnal trees.

Hmm, one of the trees looks as if it has something strange in it. Let’s move in for a closer look…

75mm

..woah, there is something there. It’s small, pink and looks as if it’s waving at us.

This is where the cheapness of the lens begins to show. The day was slightly dull, and coupled with the maximum aperture of f/4 it means bluriness aplenty - especially when handheld. Using a tripod helps slightly, but is a pain to set up all the time.

300mm

Oh arh, back to the tree. Zoom in more - 300mm. Woh, it’s a pink monkey!

At 300mm, the aperture is f/5.6. This definitely needs a tripod to be of *any* use. The slightest of hand movements can seriously mess up any photos. Indeed, even pressing the shutter button can wobble the camera! Annoying.

Stop whining

OK, I was whining a bit about the slow speed of the camera. I had some success with it back in May when I went to Germany. I took a fair few photos on the Nurburgring racetrack on “Sports” mode on my EOS400D. Basically it sets the ISO to 400 and uses a super nifty “AI Servo” focussing thing - it detects what you’re photographing even if it’s moving and you’re tracking objects, and adjusts the focus suitably.

That photo is ace, despite the German rain I was standing in. I also had to slightly up the colours in Photoshop.

Alternatives

There are loads of alternative lenses available, made by most manufacturers - Canon, Sigma, Tokina etc. I can’t list them all so you’ll have to look into it for yourselves to find something suitable to you. Canon’s L series are apparently really good (good glass and high speeds) - but they’re really expensivo.

Examples

You can see some of the photos I have taken with this lens on my flickr. As said at the start, there aren’t many because I barely use this lens.

Further reading

Flickr also has a discussion group / photo pool dedicated to the lens. It’s a great source of inspiration to see what others are doing with the lens, but not the busiest of groups. I guess it’s not very busy because there are a huge range of similar lenses but with slightly different numbers (70-300, 90-300 etc).