I am contemplating buying Canon ef75-300mm usm or the same model with image stabilizer built in Canon ef75-300mm IS I notice the price is more than double with IS model. Will it make a big difference in picture quality,ease of use in outdoor when I don't want to use tripod and want to use slower film for picture quality. I want to use it mainly for taking picture of kids. Is it worth it to buy expensive IS model.

-- peter li (pli@hatch.ca), November 16, 1999

Answers

Peter,

Its worth the price. As far as image quality is concern its basically the same lens with some sort of elec. device that take cares of small jitters that we often encounter when handholding long lenses. With this lens you'll be able to use much slower speed to enable you to utilize low light environment. It will be helpful specially when taking picture of kids.

-- Alvin S. Granada (granada666@yahoo.com), November 16, 1999.

I agree with Alvin. However, it should be noted that the performance deteriorates rapidly beyond 150mm. At 300mm, the weakest focal length, the performance is just poor. For mid-sized prints this should be still sufficient but for slides and posters something sharper is certainly more desirable. However, that's the point where the dilemma starts because there're very few decent x-300mm zooms out there. If you need more quality you may try to find a EF 100-300/5.6L - the optics is great though the mechnical construction is ancient. If you've the money there's the 100-400L IS. Another option would be a EF 70-400/4L + EF 1.4x or a EF 200/2.8L +1.4. All more expensive obviously but probably more fun on the long run.

-- Klaus Schroiff (kschroiff@baunetz.de), November 20, 1999.

I think by describing the performance at 300mm as "poor" you may be misleading a beginner. By professional standards, the 75-300 at 300mm isn't great but it's often adequate. By typical consumer standards it's not a bad lens. Many people consider it to be capable of yielding quite satisfactory 8x10 prints - and most people never print bigger than that!

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), November 20, 1999.

What Bob said. And, personally, I don't think the IS is really cost-justified on this lens ($490US vs $210US). It's fairly slow (f/5.6 at the 300 end), and ends up being pretty light (16.8 oz). While the IS may helps some in lower light, it's really not that difficult to handhold this lens when necessary. If you can afford the IS version, great. If have the non-IS, and have never felt a need for stabilization when handholding it...

-- Scott (bliorg@yahoo.com), November 23, 1999.

Should one consider the 100-300 F4-5.6 USM over the 75-300? It reviews in Photozone are higher.

Since I'm about to make a decision on a consumer zoom, yours answers will be appreciated.

Thanks, Ted

-- Ted (t.reyes@ix.netcom.com), November 27, 1999.