Canon Lens Advice (1 Viewer)

[Steve25]

I will shortly be upgrading my Canon body and will be letting my daughter use my old 20d body, I also have a 1.4X Canon teleconverter she can use.

She is also interested in bird photography and would like a lens of at least 300m.
Budget is up to £150 and new or used is ok.

If someone could help with any recommendations I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

 

[nick scarle]

Hi Steve

PM sent.

 

[neogfx]

The Sigma 70-300mm is an excellent budget lens. I used it for about a year before upgrading to the 100-400mm and had no problems with it.

 

[Overread]

If your looking at the sigma 70-300mm lens make sure you get the APO edition of it. The APO coatings make a noticable improvement to sharpness in shots. Its a good lens for its price and its macro (though only 1:2) is one of its stronger features (when used on a tripod).
As for the 1.4TC it won't be comptable with the 70-300mm lens - even the sigma edition is not comptable with the lens. (and honestly at the long end the lens does notreally have the quality to take a 1.4TC and give good results)

 

[John P]

Is the Sigma significantly better than the Canon 75-300? (Which I'm struggling with just a little bit).

 

[Overread]

look at its position in the market I would think not. At this end of the market things are not that grand and the lenses will force you to learn some good practice to get the best out of them (use a tripod - stopping down to f8 can really help as well)

If your after new glass aim higher (I know its all expensive and had just got more expensive recently but aim for the better lenses and you will see a big differnce)

 

[Gemm]

If you are thinking of Sigma 70-300 or Canon 75-300, I'd recommend Canon 100-300. Although it's slightly more expensive, it's better built and has ring USM (faster and quieter AF + non-rotating front element). Image quality is good too. But the best of all, it has a full-time manual focus feature. :t:

 

[Jaff]

Take a look on MPB's website. I think they have one or two items you may find interesting. :t:

 

[Rob Jones]

If your looking at the sigma 70-300mm lens make sure you get the APO edition of it.

Yes, I agree entirely. I compared this lens with my Canon 70-200mm IS F/2.8 and it produced shots as good as it (taken at 200mm.)

It's a relitively slow lens though and using it with a telecon would only slow it up more. Good enough though if you get bright light.

 

[Overread]

Yes, I agree entirely. I compared this lens with my Canon 70-200mm IS F/2.8 and it produced shots as good as it (taken at 200mm.)

It's a relitively slow lens though and using it with a telecon would only slow it up more. Good enough though if you get bright light.

now that really surprises me! IS that image comparison at websizes (so around 1000pixels on the longest side) or fullsized images?
I don't think the sigma will take a TC - certainly it won't take a nikon or a canon make one.

 

[eastwood]

I am also interested to know how these low end -300 lenses fare. I haven't used the Sigma and Tamron, but my first long Canon is the 75-300 EFII (old model) bought in the film era. I dug it out from my dessication box and put it onto the 40D to give it a go. Images are definitely quite soft, but under close to optimal condition, it can still produce some reasonable pics. AF is slow as expected, but for larger and slow flying objects, tracking is still possible, I would say. The pigeon on the roof is shot across a road with 2 driving lanes and one paking lane on each way, so quite a distance.
If my budget is limited to this, one option I would consider is to try to get a cheap used one of these lenses (whichever I see fit), and save the rest for a better one in the future. The important thing is to have hands on before buying as at this end, quality variation may be considerable. The APO Sigma seems to have the edge as it contains special glasses.
Images have been cropped and processed. (The dark line going through the legs of the standing pigeon is a power line.)

 

[HokkaidoStu]

I started off with the cheaper Sigma 70-300 (non APO). It had its' limitations to be sure.........slow noisy AF, very soft over 250mm for example but I enjoyed using it and managed some OK pics.

The APO version would be better still. I wouldn't bother with a T/C. Cropping would be better I would have thought.

If you buy a cheap lens you'll hanker after another very soon. I got the Canon 70-300 IS and it was a lot better but was about 4 or 5 times more expensive. Now I have a 100-400 and my wife uses the 70-300 IS and she takes some nice wildlife pics on her 450D......

Here are a few of shots taken with the Sigma 70-300 on my 400D. They're cropped of course. It cost about ¥13000 a couple of years ago (about $130).