Price. While it's not cheap, The price is costs versus the images it can produce makes me consider it pretty good value for money.

Sub-300mm Image Quality. At 300mm, your images will suffer from decreased sharpness. It's always handy to have, but I rarely use it over 250mm, and have produced some brilliant pictures from this.

Image Stabilization. While a very early example of Image stabilization, it works well and effectively, though sacrifices in discreetness should be noted.

Aperture. 8 Blades provide good bokeh. Not the best, but better than a 7 bladed or 6 bladed aperture.

300mm Image Quality. Quite poor even in the center. Though strangely it's sharpness improves in the corners at 300mm than lengths below 300mm.

Zoom Creeping. Has the potential to rather annoy people. It did annoy me for a while, but I've learned to live with it.

Price. This is both a Strength and a weakness, in my opinion. It's price puts it too close to the much better EF 70-200mm F4L, which for all intents and purposes (minus 'reach') is a better lens (though, it doesn't have IS, which may be a concern).

No focus limiter. Can be annoying for low passing planes on a beach front. Other than that, not really a problem for me.

This lens is not technically mine, rather my Father's lens which I use. The price paid and purchased at are marked as N/A as these lenses were given to him by his brother.

This is one of the first SLR lenses I ever used, i remember handling it when I was about 12 and thinking that it was a giant thing, and quite heavy as well (I used the smaller film cameras, so the weight took me by surprise).

It's a relatively long lens, and extends quite a distance when zoomed fully. The exterior of the lens is not the highest quality plastic I've ever seen used, but it definitely feels like it could take a drop or two. The portion of the lens that extends seems a little loose, which isn't very good, though I expect that the age of the lens may have a part to play in this.

This lens does have a zoom creeping problem. This is where (for the uneducated) the friction of the lens is not enough to stop the extending portion of the barrel from moving by itself. Thus, when you aim the camera upwards or downwards, the lens will zoom in (when aiming downards) or zoom out (when aiming upwards). The lens I have demonstrates this very well. When aiming about 45 degrees downward or upward, the lens barrel will move, changing the focal length. The easiest way to counter this problem is to hold onto the zoom ring at all times.

In terms of sharpness and quality, I find nothing to fault with my copy of the lens. It seems very sharp up to around 250mm, where it starts deteriorating slightly. In terms of contrast, it could be better, but for what I use it for (Landscapes, or, more accurately, sunsets), it seems fairly good. Distortion isn't very noticeable (for me anyway), though a little bit of pincushion can be observed at 300mm.

This was Canon's first Image Stabilized lens, and thus represents the introduction of the technology. As you can expect, it's not very refined. It works well, and I can observe its effects at 300mm with 10x zoom in live view. However, it makes one hell of a noise when activated. First it 'bluntly' 'clunks' then a relatively loud whirring noise is heard. It is VERY noticeable. It gives me around 2-3 stops when handheld, so I can't really complain. Though, it does let me know when it's working, which I find a plus.

The autofocus mechanism (Micro USM, not Ring USM) is very accurate and relatively fast for me. It hunts very little at 70mm, and seems to Hunt the whole range at 300mm for objects I would consider easy to focus on. This is a little irritating for me. I used it at my first airshow, and it locked focus very quickly and continued tracking very well. The only times I was let down was when tracking a Eurofighter typhoon (This was very close to the beach front, and the Typhoon was approaching the speed of sound). I couldn't track it fast enough (it would appear) and it lost focus completely. The relatively short amount of time it was there didn't help much either.

It has no focus limiter, which was quite irksome during the airshow. As I was sitting on the beach, the groynes and people would make the lens focus on them, quite irritating for the low passing maneuvers. It would have been nice to have one, but then, this is not a professional lens, so I can't really complain.

Surprisingly, it has a nice 8 bladed aperture, which produces nice bokeh, and makes near-circles with out of focus bright light sources (though, the blades in this camera are not rounded, unfortunately).

This lens, while once heavy in my opinion, is now quite light, in my opinion. I have a sigma 10-20mm, which feels like a solid piece of glass, while this feels about the same weight, though much longer. So, it isn't too much of a hassle to be carrying around.

While I think this lens is good, I could not recommend it above the 70-200mm F4L lens. While that lens does not reach as far, it is much sharper, has better contrast, opens wider at the long end and it just built better.

Some examples of photographs I have taken with this lens are available here (Full size images are available from the gallery links that are below the 'thumbnail versions):
'Backlit':
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/8910/tmpphpckztei.jpg
http://gallery.photographyreview.com/showphoto.php?photo=147670&cat=500&ppuser=285879

'Brighton West Pier':
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/24/img7115.jpg
http://gallery.photographyreview.com/showphoto.php?photo=147671&cat=500&ppuser=285879

Apart from size reduction in Photoshop, these have all been unedited.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

70-200mm F4L
70-200mm F2.8L IS

Image stabiliser. 75-300mm range. Build quality.

230mm+ zoom length. Slow focus speed. Focus hunt. Price for what it is.

Basically, a average grade lens with IS tacked onto the side. This lens is soft pretty much all the way thru. Sharpen's up quite well at F8-11 but at 230mm length or more, nothing will save it. Distortions & aberations are pretty good for the price. The slow focus speed and hunting makes owning this lens painfull. Good lens to own if you want to practice manual focus. I did. Overall, it isn't a bad lens. The IS is great. Easily hand hold 1/60. Just keep it under 230mm and you have a pretty decent walk about & low light lens. With practice you will learn to avoid the situations where this lens AF gets confused. (dark rooms)

Customer Service

Unknown.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 70-200 F4. Sigma 100-300 F4. Canon 90-300 usm.

IS 300mm Good performance/value ratio

Slow AF and hunt a lot in the low light. However it can be overcome by using only center focus point. 1st generation IS does not offer panning - What I discover is turn off IS and just us it as a normal 75-300mm and it works pretty well.

This weekend I recieved my new 70-200mm "L" lens. It is fast, snappy, sharp like everyone else claimed. However, I decided to return it and keep my 75-300mm IS. Why? 75-300mm IS have 2 major strength over the 70-200mm. One is IS, which offer you more opptunity to get the shot you want in dim light. Second is the reach. That extra 100mm does come handi when you need that extra inch. I admit, I probably got a pretty good copy or something, because when I do the side-by-side comparison, quality between 70-200mm L and 75-300mm IS coming pretty close, except 70-200mm L offer better contrast and a little bit sharper. In the end, the most important thing to me is getting the shoot!

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 75-300mm DL Canon 70-200mm L

IS, light weight.

Slow AF, especially in low light.

I think I got a good copy of the lens. My shoots are sharp and clear. IS really works!

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 70-300 DL

Decorates camera bodies for sale and is not quite as bad as the (dire) 22-55mm or the(mostly poor) Canon standard kit zooms.

Most important, the versions I have used seemed incapable of making sharp, saturated images whatever care was taken. Prone to flare and colour degradation. Cosmetically they feel flimsy and plastic. I do appreciate that not everone wants or can afford L glass, but there are much better non-L lenses for the money.

The Canon 75-300mm consumer zooms - I've owned and used both the IS and non-IS versions - are pretty average at best and poor value for money. Not only soft, as people rightly say, but also prone to flare which reduces colour saturation and contrast. I was very disappointed by the quality of shots taken in intensive use of the 75-300mm IS in sunny and photogenic Crete a couple of years back, and subsequently traded it against the 70-200mm f4L instead. Best move I ever made. Now that the 70-200mm f4L is dropping in price it is even better value. Save up for the 1.4x converter to go with it and/or use it on a digital body - THAT combination can give you great results where the 75-300mm will probably always disappoint you too.

Customer Service

Unless it is free it would be wasted on one of these.

Similar Products Used:

70-200mm f4L; 70-200mm f2.8L; (both with 1.4x and 2x canon converters) 80-200mm Leica f4 ROM.

IS rules! Sharper than most would say (of course, if you blow up your shots 5000X then you might say it is not as sharp as a pro lens, but I rarely blow up slides to 5000X and most people don't either) Light weight Good quality for the price

Lens hood sold separately Cannot focus manually when AF is on even though it is a USM lens...

I have been using this lens for 1 month and took it on a trip to Costa Rica. I was worried about the sharpness problem but it took some darn sharp and contrasted pictures even at 300 mm. There seems to be a bit of vignetting at full aperture but this is un-noticeable if you shoot at f/8. The IS is absolutely fabulous and it allowed me to take fantastic pictures of wildlife under the rainforest canopy in conditions where carrying around 5 lbs L series lenses would have been a real pain! The autofocus is slower than other USM lenses but it did not spoil any shots when used an EOS A2E. However, when my A2E died on me and I had to use a Rebel G2, things got a bit more complicated. I also don't like the fact that you cannot manually focus when AF is on, unlike other USM lenses. Overall, it is a good bang for your buck if you are not ready to spit out the 1000$ and more required for a faster lens and want a good quality zoom that can shoot in lower light conditions.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 USM

IS, IS, ISlight black 58mm filter USM AF is quick on AI Servo

sharpness between 200-300 especially at 300. price(the new prices are much lower)

I have been warned about the lens, compared to the 70-200 4L.Everybody told me to go for the 70-200 4L.However I have made the following conclusions: The 4l has filter size 67.I have a 58 B+W pol.filter already cost(90EUR).The 4 L comes without tripod attachement.All together the investment would have been more than 350USD more,which makes it unfair to compete with the L lens.I found out that you can make very(!)sharp pics between 70-200.Mainly because you can stop down to 8 in most situations thanks to the IS.It is crispy between 75-150.I wouldn't see a big difference there. The lens is black and less blinking than the 70-200L.Making natural shots of people on the streets possible. It is true the lens is soft between 200-300.Handhold.Put in on a tripod at 8-11 you will get crispy shots again, if you don't have the light otherwise the IS lets you shooting at 300mm with at least 1/125sec. One of the big reasons why people are not satisfied witht this lens but with the smaller brother 28-135IS , that all tele lens above 200mm just need more light than given in most situations. The AF is good.Not as good as the 28-105 USM , but if you give the lens the time after zooming to adapt to the right focus, it will stay on focus very quickly when the object is moving.Maybe my EOS 30 is a good support here.Or Canon updated the lens during the years. I tested the lens at 75mm against the 50 1.8 and the 28-105 USM in low light condition at home handhold. This lens was much better. I know that my testing and review might be different to what other people's opinion.You are welcome to let me know what you are thinking.

Customer Service

Slow on e-mail questions!!

Similar Products Used:

50 1.8 28-105mm

"IS" is very useful.

Very slow auto focus soft image above 200mm CA problem

The image is sharp from 55 - 200mm. Above 200mm the image is getting soft. i use the lens about a month and I decided to sell it.

Similar Products Used:

17-40 F4L 50mm / F1.8 70 - 200 F4L

Good price for I.S. lens 58mm filters easy to find

I.S. eats up battery power Hood sold seperately

For someone who photographs wildlife this a valuable piece of equipment. You can follow around your subject and not have to haul around or take time setting up a tripod. The lens isn't heavy at all. The Image Stabilizer switch is easy to reach with your thumb, but the autofocus switch isn't. The USM feature makes for very fast, very quiet focusing. The only pequliarity of this lens is that the focusing group of the lens moves if it is pointed upward. The optics are decent quality as well.

Customer Service

None needed

Similar Products Used:

Tamron 75-300 f/5-6.3 (nice)

IS is great for handheld bird images. 75mm is fairly sharp.

very mushy soft focus at all f ratios at 300mm. Locks up about 10 percent of the time.

Got the lens as part of a package with my EOS1V. I am not impressed with the soft focus, especially at full zoom. I have not had any problems with the focus searching, however, sometimes when I turn the camera on, the lens will not come to life, and just sits there out of focus.

Customer Service

None - yet.

Similar Products Used:

Other Canon lenses