Canon 70-300 is usm

>> "anytime I go back to my 70-300 I just absulutely hate the results."

You should probably be more specific about what exactly are the deficiencies of the lens. Many things can potentially contribute to poor image quality, such as: distortion, softness, CA, vignetting, focusing problems, and so on. Technical mistakes such as improper focus and the usage of shutter speeds too slow to freeze the motion of a subject or aparture setting too shallow to allow enough DOF could also cause undesirable results.

>> "I've been trying to take pictures of birds, and they are all soft, and many times have like a "aura" around the edges of the bird."

You need to be more specific, maybe post a crop from the image.

>> "Do I need to shoot with more light maybe?"

Your camera setting and the shooting condition will determine whether you should "shoot with more light" or more often, adjust your camera's settings. Obviously using high ISO and/or a faster lens will compensate for poor lighting.

It's a fine lens. Unless your's is broken you should have problems with it. At 300mm it does sharpen up very slighly at f8, so if you have enough light at 300mm to shoot at f8, do so.

Despite having very useful IS, IS is still no substitute for a tripod when the light is low and shutter speeds drop much below 1/125s.

The 70-300IS will never be as sharp at 300mm as the 100/2.8 macro can be at 100mm, but it should still be good.

"I have since purchased the 100mm macro, and the 50mm, and since I've been taking pictures with them, anytime I go back to my 70-300 I just absulutely hate the results."

As Bob mentioned. You can't really compare a 100mm and 50mm (fixed aperture) prime lenses, with a 70-300mm (variable aperture) zoom. From everything I've read, the 70-300 IS is a great lens. Perhaps a fixed aperture zoom like a 70-200mm (f/4, or f/2.8) will give you results, closer to your prime lenses. But the general consensus is that primes will "usually" have better IQ, than a zoom.

Amol

My guess is that since this lens is slower you are getting camera shake causing blur. Try testing out properly with a tripod. And if the softness persists, send it in for calibration. Did you ever drop it?

Well, for portraits, landscapes, sports, candids, shots of the moon and a few other uses I have found it to be an excellent lens and it's actually hard not to take a very good to excellent shot with it. You certainly do not need a tripod most of the time. For the moon shot, yes. For outdoor sports, a monopod is useful though often not required. Its color, bokeh, and sharpness are really, really great. It is a relatively inexpensive lens and since it is not too big and it's black rather than white you can get it into certain venues that professional lenses would be prohibited.

For portraits, I have often found it to rival the color, sharpness and bokeh of my 85mm f/1.8. And that's saying something.

People on this board often argue as to whether it is preferable to the 70-200 f/4 (non-IS) which costs about the same.

Are you sure you are talking about the 70-300 IS and not the 75-300 IS?

Get it calibrated.

Yes it is the 70-300 is. Thanks for all your comments. I will call Canon. I've never dropped the lens or anything like that.

If I'm shooting hand held with IS on, what do you guys think the slowest shutter speed I should be using be if lets say I'm shooting at the 300mm end?

I've read that it should be the reciprocal, so 1/300, but with IS on, should I be able to go slower?

I'm going to take a few shots with a tripod tomorrow, and post them on this thread and see what you all think.

Thank you so much for all your help.

Here's a sample of the 70-300 IS. Not perfect but pleasing, IMHO.

>> "If I'm shooting hand held with IS on, what do you guys think the slowest shutter speed I should be using be if lets say I'm shooting at the 300mm end?

I've read that it should be the reciprocal, so 1/300, but with IS on, should I be able to go slower?"

If you're good at holding it still and have the IS on, I suppose shutter speeds around 1/40s could be ok. abaut please remember that IS can and will only be able to compensate for camera shake or the motion of your hands.So motion blur due to subject movement will remain in that senario. You'll need to use high ISO or faster lenses to achieve a higher shutter speed to freeze its motion.

The mentioned 1/300 speed is for FF 300mm shooting with a reasonably steady hand. You should apply the crop factor for your camera so it's 1/480.

Canon claims a 3 stop IS improvement so you should be able to divide that by 2x2x2 (=8).

Using this data you should be able to get reasonable sharp pictures at 1/60 handheld.

IS on that lens should be good for 2-3 stops of hand hold ability. If you are using a crop frame camera (450D, 40D, etc.) 300mm is equivalent of 480mm, so 1/500 would be the closest reciprocal speed. 2 stops down would be 1/125, and perhaps you can go as slow as 1/60 for a reasonably safe speed for the average person. Lots of people have gotten away with far slower shutter speeds at least occasionally, but that hardly makes it reliable for the average person. Besides, this is just a rule of thumb, and there are lots of exceptions to it.

If you are being critical in examining your images, you usually want to at least double the recommended minimum shutter speed. And it sounds like you are being critical. So call 1/250 as the minimum reliable super sharp shutter speed, and use slower speeds only when you really need them.

While the Canon 70-300 is a very good consumer lens, it isn't the sharpest lens at 300mm. It's really good up to 200mm, and reasonably good at 300mm, but if you are examining your images critically you will certainly see that it isn't as sharp as your 50mm or 100mm lenses.

And their was an issue of blur when using early copies of this lens in portrait mode. You might be having a similar issue.

Finally, distance shots often seem softer and less contrasty due to atmospheric haze in distant shots. Since long lenses are more commonly used with distant subjects, the haze usually effects the average shot with longer lenses more than with shorter ones.

:: If I'm shooting hand held with IS on, what do you guys think the slowest shutter speed I should be using be if lets say I'm shooting at the 300mm end?

For what it's worth, my 55-250 IS (at 250mm) can compensate up to 1/60 decently. I can force the issue at 1/20 if I brace myself against a wall or something. It's still not a really clear shot, but it's gets decent once you resize. I guess your 70-300 can also be hand-held at 1/60 but it's still not something I'd always do. Your mileage may vary. We all love IS, but it's not something to rely on every time.

Neither the 50mm prime nor the 100/2.8 macro have ever been critisised for being soft (when stopped down reasonably that is ... especially not the 100/2.8). With the 70-300 IS, I found images to be better, if you dont rely on the 3-stop advantage from the IS.

With the 300mm on a crop 1.6 camera, you would usually keep exposure time at 1/500 (or above). IS allows you the equivalent of another 3 stops this brings you to 1/60 ... and indeed, one can take nice pictures at 1/60s ... but if you really pixel-peep, you'll see a difference to a picture taken with 1/500 and above.

Also, at f/4 on the wide end and at f/5.6 on the long end, imagequality is not as good as if you stop down to f/8 or f/11. But often stopping down is only possible if you use a slower exposure time (or raise iso). So, often you'll have to make a compromise. (More often as with the primes)

The last factor, that let's images from the 70-300 look potentially less good than those of the primes is ... bokeh ... out-of-focus-blur ... I personally like the flexibility of this lens, but bokeh is only mediocre. This, and the ability of the primes to isolate parts of the image (with shallow DOF when used wide open or near there) makes probably the biggest difference in the images.

Is yours the DO lens rather than the IS USM non DO lens?

If you are on a tripod switch IS off. At 300 it it slightly softer but a stop down to f8 cures this.

It is optically a fine lens, I'm not that happy with the extension, the build quality or the rotating front ring, but I'm happy with the pictures.

The old 75-300 variants were terrible at 300, loads of ghosting etc but canon sorted it for this version.

I use mine for fast moving subjects often towards the camera in Ai servo mode, even in reasonable light it performs very well.

Although the IS lets you hand hold the lens at slower shutters, it can't do anything about motion blur. If the bird is twitching then you still need a fast shutter, IS or not.

I have one and use it regularly for motorsports events, if you are pixel peeping it is not as sharp as my 70-200 F4L, but from picture to picture it is a very fine lens. Here is an example, ISO 200, 1/320 sec, F7.1, AF in servo mode.

Heres another one of a car not in motion so you can see that it is a pretty sharp lens.

Fernando:

There's a good article in this month's Popular Photography on photographing birds in flight. (The September 2008 issue.)

Richard:

Great shots. And FWIW your previously posted photos of motorsports convinced me to upgrade to the 70-300 IS.

Thanks Jeff, glad that some of my input helped you out. I think this lens if very underrated, on the test bench it is obviously less then any of the 70-200 versions but in real life pictures it is quite nice. I'm very pleased with the results I've gotten.

"Is it me or this thing is garbage?"

I hate to talk bad about this lens again. It's not a bad lens for certain things like head-shots and 3/4 portraits, also the bokeh is really nice. The reason why maybe I'm dissapointed with this lens is that I once had a choice to use either a Canon 400mm, a Nikon 300 f2.8, or this lens for an all day youth soccer match. I chose the 70-300mm for mobility, but right off the bat I could tell this lens was lacking in build quailty.

In any case it was light so I could move around all over the field. The two other photgraphers were stuck behind their tripods in one spot on the field. The shoot lasted form 7:00AM till 8:00PM, so I was sort of glad I had chosen the 70-300mm. During the shoot I noticed the lens hunted allot sometimes extending to the full maximum then contracting before it finally locked on the subject.

The shots looked pretty good on the playback, so I was satisfied with the job I did. It wasn't until we downloaded the pictures to a computer, that we could tell the difference between the lenses. The 70-300mm was not even close, even with the IS.

It's really not fair comparing a $600 lens to a $3000, this lens has it's limitiations but all in all it's a good lens. I just don't think I would shell out the $600 for it.

I had this lens and became unhappy with it. Everything seemed soft beyond 200 mm. One day, I had it resting on a stone wall taking shots of distant birds. I noticed that the clarity of the shot changed when I lifted the camera. It turns out that the front of the lens was flexing with its own weight, thereby putting portions of the image out of focus. I bought the f/2.8 70-200 L and never looked back.

Try this site for lens reviews: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/

Mine doesn't flex. Here's a 100% crop from a shot at 300mm.

Maybe its a bad sample.

I just love the replies comparing it to a fixed 2.8 pro series lens. Very helpful.

"My toyota avensis has broken down."

"Oh I drive a lamborghini, the avensis is inferior"

I have other fixed fl lenses that cover this focal range and occassionally I'll use them.

If I'm after a light bag day with great all-rounder built to a price then this is the lens I pick up and it frequently exceeds my expectations when used within sensible parameters.

For a very fair review IMHO www.photozone.de

Early versions of the 70-300 IS USM did suffer from portrait orientation focus problems: Canon actually stopped producing the lens for a bit while they worked out a solution. They offered a free fix/replacement for affected lenses. It's possible that a few of the early, unfixed lenses are still out in the wild. If the date of manufacture code is early 2006 or before you might have one of these.

Well, well, well, it turns out that the problem was "operator" related after all! :) (Yeah, like you all had any doubts about that one! :) ) I just went out to the backyard, set up the tripod, and (this never happens here in Texas, at least where I live) a mockingbird just happens to land right in front of me in the yard. Couldn't have asked for a better test subject, I will post the better picture (remember this is just test "backyard shot"). I was pleasantly surprised. This shot was using 300mm with at f6.3. I then took a few more shots of just "stuff" and I closed the aperture to 8, with better results. All the shots I took at f5.6, looked like the bad shots I was referrering to initially. So, like I said, operator error! Thank you for teaching me how to get the better results from this lens. I was worried that I had flushed $600 down the toilet.

Now, my 100mm does take sharper shots, but using this lens the proper way gets a lot closer to it.

Thanks again,

Fernando

Here's another one using the f5.6

When you look at the second one, you can see why I was concerned. The first one isn't super sharp either, but is very much acceptable to me.

Fernando

Fernando - I have this lens and I like it. I think that if you look at your second shot you will notice that while the bird is out of focus the grass on the ground in front of the bird is sharp. This probably means they your camera autofocused on a blade of grass in front of the bird. Are you using Center-point only focusing? If so, you must still watch out that the actual AF sensitive area is about twice to three times the size of the AF point in the horizontal and vertical directions. Your first picture looks very good and certainly does not exhibit any sharpness problems - I would be very happy with it. I think your copy is probably just fine.

Good luck!

As typically is the case, user error rather than lens problems. You simply can't trust what you read on the net unless you know and trust the source. Many (if not most) reports of bad lenses turn out to be user errors.

Well, I really didn't read anything on the net, I just thought my images were soft compared to my 100mm macro, which I knew would be sharper, I just didn't realize how much more "forgiving" this lens is of my "newbie" camera settings. I can take a picture of anything at any aperture and my 100mm macro has a super sharp image. I just expected too much out of the 70-300. It definately takes a lot more than just setting my camera to "P" and shooting away.

Now I have one other question. Is F8 the best aperture for ANY lens, for sharpness, or do all lenses have a different number?

-- "Is F8 the best aperture for ANY lens, for sharpness, or do all lenses have a different number?"

No, different lenses have different numbers, and those numbers even vary depending on the spot you look on (center, border, corner). But ... f/8 is usually not far away from the best aperture.