Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II Telephoto Zoom Lens

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I was using the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras For last 4 years. I am a ameture photographer who loves nature and animal photography. I use Canon XTi. Everytime i would visit a zoo or a botanical garden i try to shoot as many good pictures as i can and share them in Flickr with my friends. The 75-300mm is a great lens, the picture quality is better than this one in my opinion. But the issue is without a tripod and in little dark condition i was getting many be 2 out of 10 pictures that are of some quality (At around 250-300mm). The lens is very poor in shooting a moving object and you need real luck to be able to get a good focus at longer distance. This lens is really handy in that case. Using this lens i am getting may be 5 out of 10 shots which are of good quality, and 7 out of 10 are OK quality. Of course not a great great lens but much better than the other one. Also this lens is much lighter and smaller than the EF 75-300mm III. It is made of composite plastic, but i dont care. for me it is more important to have a lighter, smaller lens which i can carry easily and fits my camera bag. I am missing the tele-shots from 250mm to 300mm, But i am getting 55mm - 70mm range which makes it more versatile in my opinion. Both these lens are slow in focusing (Non-USM) and make the same level of noise while focusing (Maybe the 55-250 makes a little less noise). Cost of both these lens are almost comparable (55-250 is 30/40 more). So all in all i am happy with my purchase and decision to replace my old one with this one. A must have for the ameture photographers owing a canon APS-C Camera like my XTi.

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I purchased this lens specifically for the image stability option. I love this and being able to take distance photos without needing to set up a tri-pod. I am just a beginner photographer, but for my purposes, this lens in great! I like to take photos of morning sky colors just before the sun comes up and this has allowed me to capture some great ones. I definitely recommend this lens for people just starting out. This lens also has auto focus. I have played with this a little bit and sometimes I use that option too, but more often I use the manual focus option. I just like being able to control it.

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I bought this lens to use as a walk-around lens -- one thats capable of most any shot most of the time. It does that pretty well, but bear in mind that there is no magic bullet for this sort of thing. Any time youre using a lens with this range, its gonna have some trade-offs. For daylight, its hard to beat. Quick to focus and lots of aperture room to play around with your shot. At lower light, its a little slower to focus, but at f5.6, its remarkably faster than my Tamron 18-200 at f6.3. That lens drove me crazy trying to focus in lower light conditions. The Image Stabilizer works well. Most of my shots are casual, family photos, but I do like to try to get some bird shots now and again. At 250mm, there is a marked difference with the IS on. Ive read here and there that the IS gives you three or four more stops in lower light. Not sure I can confirm that, but I wont disagree, either. Im glad I chose a lens with this feature. Pros: Weight is decent. Relatively quick to focus. IS works well. Zoom is very smooth and Ive not noticed any zoom creep. For a lower-end lens, bokeh is really nice. Cons: 55mm can be a little tight for some shots. Id prefer if the lens were ~25 to ~250, but then the cost skyrockets if you want anything faster than f6 or so. Bear in mind that like all superzooms, there are compromises. Fast, big zoom, or affordable. Pick two. Bottom line: a great all-purpose lens provided you understand the limitations.

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I’m a graphic designer and I don’t normally do photography jobs but I got offered to do one that I couldn’t refuse, which was for a football (soccer) team. I ordered this lens knowing I needed one with more zoom. It showed up quickly and in great condition. It worked so much better than I thought it would and the client loved the photos. For what started as an impulse buy is now a lens that is one of my favorites. The price is amazing and is perfect for beginners or one that is wanting to learn photography more seriously. I can’t wait to practice with this lens and work my way up to a lens with a bigger budget.

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I bought this lens 4 years ago and have always had problems with depth of field. Have played with all settings including aperture and still have crappy depth of field when zoomed in. I always thought it was me or something I wasnt doing, but recently had a much better photographer look at it and they came to the same conclusion. Now my question is: Is it just my lens that is possibly defective or are they all like this? I was using a tripod and photographing birds in my flowers and two birds not even 1 foot apart, one was in focus the other was blurry.

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I bought this lens because I wanted a single walk-around lens that would cover a broad zoom range, and in that capacity it performs well. I knew I would sacrifice some quality for the sake of versatility, which is certainly true, but the lens is still able to produce good quality images. The obvious: This is not an L series lens, so build quality is noticeably cheaper. Image quality is not as great as an L series or as a Primal lens. Pros: A very light lens, easy to carry around. The zoom range is pretty nice, and if you have a 18-55 kit lens, it complements pretty well, on a crop frame the long end of the zoom is pretty long (around 400mm equivalent on full frame) which probably suits most tele-photo needs, and the shorter-mid zooms are great for portrait work. This is a very affordable lens, if you take its versatility into account, thats pretty great bang for your buck. Cons: Autozoom seems to have trouble locking on under less than ideal lighting conditions, especially at the longer end of the zoom. The lens extends quite a bit (about double length, or almost) with zoom and focus, which can be impractical in some situations. Lens does not include a hood, so you might want to add that to the price. Theres no FTM (Full Time Manual) which means you have to flip a switch to go into manual focus mode, instead of just moving the focus ring with your hand. As all EF-S models, it wont work on a full frame camera, so if youre planning to upgrade, this lens is probably not a good choice. Conclusion: if you want a versatile and affordable lens, and youre willing to live without the build and image quality of higher end lenses, this is a good choice, you will be able to get very nice shoots in portrait and tele-photo ranges. If you really want high end image/build quality, and you are willing to pay for it, you should go for the L Series 70-200, thats a great lens and the non-IS version is quite affordable. This is my go-to lens for carrying around when traveling, and I really appreciate the benefit of not having to switch lenses ever 5 minutes.

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This great lens arrived quickly and just as described by seller. It was new, in original packing and box, with both lens covers. I had been shopping for a zoom lens for quite some time, but just couldnt allow myself to part with enough of my money to pay the high prices Id seen advertised in stores. Id received a new Canon camera last Christmas, had been enjoying my standard lens, but knew I was missing lots of great shots without a zoom (I love bird- and wildlife-watching, as well as gardening). I didnt really need a lens that was going to get me close-ups of Mars (not yet, anyway), and was somewhat overwhelmed by all the zoom lens options out there. My son also did some research of lens options for me (he is well-versed in the camera world), and put me onto some listings in Amazon. I checked out several of the sellers of this product, and am very happy with this sellers quality and integrity. Sellers listed price was also extremely competitive. That was nice. Am I ever having a thrill getting those close-up shots you just cant get without the zoom lens! My hummingbird "cities" are none the wiser as I zoom in to catch them in so many glorious moments of grace! All my blooming and happy gardens have no idea how I stalk their delicate flowers and leaves from behind my zoom lens! I have even "out-foxed" the dens of foxes in my neighborhood by catching their antics from the "blind" of my front porch! The butterflies are clueless as to the super clear shots I can get of them now. I cant wait to play super-sleuth on the bald eagle nests we have just a few miles from our home. Farewell, blurry pictures of eaglets, vying for a snack from Mom or Dad. This year will be so wonderful catching brilliant and clear shots of those nests. The lens is just what I wanted and suits my needs perfectly.

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I have just started to take photographing little seriously. And got my self a t3i with 18-55 IS II lens. However, taking pictures of animals and birds are not that easy with 18-55 for its limited range, so I bought this one after a little research on other cheaper alternative, and I am glad that I went with this one. I am still experimenting with it as its been only two weeks so far. Without tripod I was able to frame a few good good pictures as the built in stabilizer did a very good job. I will keep you updated as I get more time with it. Please buy this item from a reputed seller, I will recommend to get it from amazon.com instead of market place seller, even though you will be paying a little extra but, I can guarantee that worth it as I heard many measurable stories of getting counterfeit lens and used one from the marketplace sellers. Update:(01/03/2013) Its been little more than two months since I bought the camera and the lens, because of the cold weather havent got much chances to shoot outside. However while shooting a few indoor photo found out the auto-focus was taking little time, same thing happened to the other lens too(18-55mm), therefore, I think its not the lens but the camera. I dont like to use auto focus feature as it doesnt give me the confident that I need. Over all I am still happy with the both camera and lens. I only regret that a few of my friends were able to buy the camera packaged with both lens only a month after I bought and saved more than 150 dollars. Well am still happy for them :P

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I use this on a Canon t4i, and it is overall a pretty good lens. I have it on my camera most of the time because the 55-250mm range is pretty useful for everything and it produces quality shots. The autofocus is accurate though not particularly fast. Zoom works well for either shots in the distance or something closer with a pretty good depth of field and bokeh if you can get nice and tight to the subject (close ups of flowers, for example.) Pictures generally look good and sharp. I dont know if its my own imagination, as I havent done any real testing, but I feel like color saturation drops off in low light compared to my other lenses with the same settings and I occasionally have to tease out the color a bit in Lightroom. It does also show some slight vignetting at certain f-stops and focal lengths. Not enough to really ruin a picture, but it can become apparent when adjusting contrast in Lightroom. 4/5 because its a good, dependable lens, but doesnt blow me away. Its my go-to workhorse but not my favorite lens.

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Ill start with the bottom line: This is a decent telephoto for an amateur on a budget. If youre not going to pay for a 70-200 L-series, this is where youre likely to end up. And as long as you dont move up to "serious amateur" status, youll be happy. The main problem I have is that it is not sharp. I ran a series of tests, taking pictures of newspaper and comparing the results to the other lenses I have. Image quality was clearly inferior to the EF 50mm f/1.8 II (about $100) and the EF-S 18-135mm STM kit lens that came with my 650D. Another issue is the quality of the IS. The IS works, but in my tests, its picture clarity due to camera shake was clearly inferior to my kit lens. This was for the same shot, same zoom level (135mm), and other conditions held constant for both lenses. One thing to note: resale value. Look at the numbers on Amazon for used items compared to new ones. The good lenses hold their values very well, but this one does not. So if you decide to sell it for an upgrade, you may be (like me) disappointed.

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