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.