Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III USM Lens

So, you retire. So, you begin to travel. So, you begin to see wildlife. So, no surprise you begin to need telephoto lenses for your Canon Camera.

Where better to look than ebay? I've always found that with a little bit of research, and a little bit of looking carefully, you can combine a good seller, with a good item, with a good purchase, which is what is at the heart of ebay.

And, like many of my purchases, it turned out successful. There you have it. Now filming polar bears in the High Arctic, Orang-Utans in the wild in Sarawak.

And what I like about the lens is that I have a quality product to make my Canon more flexible in its use. Canon products are world-leaders, and given that, then it's an obvious choice to go for their lenses as well.

I bought this lens because I felt I needed more reach for my photography, but didn't want to empty my bank account doing so. What I like about is it's price and it's size, It's is quite small as telephoto lenses go and will fit most decent sized camera bags also the lens as great bokeh (the abilty to throw the background out focus and isolate your subject). The disadvantages are that it's quite slow F5.6 at 300mm this means your going to need longer exposures and thus leave your photographs vulnerable to camera shake so a tripod is advised when using this lens.
Also being an entry level or consumer lens it does not produce super high quality images that you'd get from a L series lens, chromatic aberrations do appear and images can lack contrast.

Here are photos I've taken with this lens
http://www.flickr.com/pho​tos/starscream/2121328080/
This is taken at a distance of about 2m with the lens a t 300mm

http://www.flickr.com/pho​tos/starscream/2172737840/
Taken about 15m away lens set at 250mm

http://www.flickr.com/pho​tos/starscream/2172737528/
Taken about 3m away with lens at 300mm

All in all the Lens has done all I hoped it would, give me a bit of reach and I'm not dreading the credit card bill. This lens isn't going to get you into National Geographic but it is ideal for hobbyists, those learning the trade and those on a budget.

This is probably the best lens in the range. Its ultrasonic motor is both very quick to focus, especially in continuous shooting mode, and very quiet. It is clear and sharp. In my estimation it is better than any other make for this size lens. I have used other makes and this is definately the best. The only thing better is the Canon 'L' series lens but then you are looking at a huge difference in price, £900 + more. So if you want an excellent quality reasonably priced lens for wildlife etc you will do no better than to purchase one of these wonderfull lenses.

Bought this lens for wildlife photography for use with a Canon EOS 1100D. The build quality is very good for a budget lens,the autofocus is reasonably quick and the optics are of Canons usual high standard. The 58mm screw thread means a wide range of filters and hoods are available, overall a great low cost long distance zoom lens.
PROS.
Price,
Build quality,
Zoom Range,
Optics,

CONS.
Lack of Image stabiliser,
Really needs a tripod/monopod at full zoom for stability,

Quality Canon lens at a price you would expect an inferior generic lens. Very happy with the results, but no more than I expected as a Canon user for over 30 years. Better by far than my old AF lenses for my film camera the AE-1 and no need for adapter rings or resorting to manual settings. It could be lighter but the weight gives it a feel of quality.