Yesterday we went to the best camera store I have ever been to. Where I live there is nothing like this place. It is not just that they had a great selection (order of magnitude better than our local camera shops, don’t even get me started on Jessops). The staff actually knew their stuff, they seemed to be actual photographers, a massive bonus. If you have ever resorted to going to an electrical store for camera gear you will know what I am talking about!
I could have gone mad. If my wife and daughter hadn’t been with us we might have spent the rest of the trip camped out in the store. In the end I was strong willed enough to only look at the object of my trip, the Canon EF 70-300.
This lense completes my range of lenses.
- 18-55mm
- 50mm
- 28-80mm
- and now 70-300mm
As you can see this lense fits in as my most powerful “zoom”. I still see the 28-80mm being my general purpose every day lense, this is for outdoor long-distance shots. While the massive range of Damians “bigma” is nice, I found hefting it around to be beyond my tolerance, plus at that magnification my hand shake is really pronounced.
As well as his 500mm I also tried out Damians Sigma 18-200mm. This lense surprised me a great deal, I very nearly changed my mind and opted for this one. After putting it through its paces at the zoo I was very impressed. Good weight, nice resolution, great price.
Even at 200mm though I found myself having to make a real effort to get sharp images as the light started to fail, bumping up the ISO helped a great deal but I realised that at 200mm I was at the limit of what my camera holding skills were capable of. Any more and I would need artificial assistance.
High on my priorities then had to be
- Good zoom
- Portability
- Great optics and build quality
- Image stabilisation
- Price
One of the brilliant things about The Camera Store is they allowed me to play with the lenses. The last camera store I visted in the UK locked all the lenses behind glass and were not too keen on removing them unless I was ready to purchase (even if they by some miracle had the lense I was looking for). After trying out the Canon 70-300mm I knew it was the lense for me.
Specs
- Full frame rather than digital
- f/4-5.6
- IS with full or partial mode for panning
- USM
- Lense lock
Verdict
The IS supposedly now on this new version of the lense provides up to three stops of shake correction. I don’t know if that is true but it did allow me to get some shots out of the car window I wouldn’t ordinarily have tried. When we parked up I managed to snap some wildlife for the first time.
Despite being a fair bit physically bigger than my other lenses it is not excessively so (won’t fit in my smallest bag though, d’oh!). Weight is not a problem, surprisingly. 300mm seems plenty of magnification for me.
The one thing I noticed which isn’t a big downside is I missed the wide angle, particularly as we were in the Rockies taking landscapes. A minor irritation and no fault of the lense but for you if you are thinking of making a purchase, something to think about. Perhaps this will be mitigated on a full frame body, 70mm with the cropping cmos factored in makes it effective 35mm equivelant of 114mm.
Conclusion
I have only had my new lense for a day but I love it. Today we are going up a mountain, that will really put it to the test, I am sure it is up to the task and I am glad to not be needing to lug up my tripod!
