Canon 70-300 zoom, is this any good?

General Chat
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I’ve got a Tamron 70-300, but I fancy upgrading, and image stabilisation would be handy. I like that it’s compact too.

I saw this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Canon-EF…ve-optics-5652/333894084937?campid=5338728743

Three questions,

i) is it a worthwhile upgrade from the Tamron?

ii) what sort of money should I bid?

iii) WTF are Diffractive Optics.

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As for pricing, this gives you an idea:

It looks a decent buy at secondhand prices, albeit it seems to be very expensive new.

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Thanks Pete.

The same seller has 3 of them for sale finishing over the next week, so I don’t think I need to spunkalot straight up. I’ll set my max bid at the CEX buying price for the first one and see how far that gets me. It won’t be expensive by the time I sell the Tamron anyway.

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personally I doubt you’d see a great improvement. Marginal I’d say. Save your money for something L-series

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They’re a lot more expensive, and I’m not sure my camera (4000D) would do it justice. Plus, I wouldn’t use it enough to justify the extra expense.

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then spend the cash on a malt whisky. Seriously, I don’t think you’d see much difference. YMMV

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It’s the IS I’m really thinking about Simon. I’m finding it hard to hold it steady at longer zoom atm, the fucking virus has left me weak as a kitten.

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1/ No. These DO versions are all more small size than quality the IS mostly likely shares the mechanism from the very first 1995 canon 70 - 300 IS which will only improve you 2 stops at best. Current IS will offer 3 or 4 stops improvement.

2/ None - This is all risk with no significant improvement

3/ DO is glass with high defraction that allows lenses to be made smaller - In this particular version at 300mm will be soft.

The Canon 55 - 250 STM is a modern fast focusing compact and sharp lens that will outperform the DO lens. Although I haven’t used one they are reviewed very well

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now that is a different matter. Will it be easier for you to use? isnt the Canon much heavier than the Tamron.

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I’m just hoping to get non blurry shots from a distance.

I made a trekking stick monopod a few weeks back, and that does help, providing I can get the camera on to it before whatever I want to snap buggers off.

My thinking was this lens being physically shorter plus IS would make any shake less obvious. But if the image quality isn’t all that (and that seems to be the consensus), it’s pointless.

Those 55-250 stm look good, thanks Dave, and they seem to go for reasonable money. Will have a look at them.