Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
Customer Review: I Love It For IS and Zoom Range at this Price, Not Pure Performance
Summary: 5 Stars
I was determined to love this lens based on the specs and price point alone. Canon really needed to come out with this lens at this price because Nikon offers a very decent Vibration Reduction lens at roughly the same range for the same price, leaving me to make apologies for Canon and their neglect to all my Nikon friends.
The IS can be switched off to save battery life but I haven't noticed a difference in battery performance with it. The IS is only activiated when you press the shutter halfway for auto focus. Although it FEELS like there is a small lag for the IS to start, I don't think I've had any photos messed up because of it.
You can HEAR the IS. A little bizarre after using point and shoots that have IS that is silent, but it doesn't seem to affect performance
Pro: Great price for an image stabilized zoom lens. I paid 299 and am very pleased even though Amazon is selling it for 280 a week later. ALso arrive 2 months sooner than Amazon initially promised. This lens has NEVER been 400 dollars. Its MSRP from Canon prior to release was 299.00. Shame Amazon!
Pro: Images are very sharp.
Pro: Image stabilization does a VERY nice job. Four stops as advertised by Canon? I'm not so sure. GREATLY enhancing the composition experience at 250mm? Absolutely.
Pro: Much smaller and lighter than the 70-300 of any manufacturer and much sharper than my Sigma 70-300.
Con: Cheapish feel. But just use it, quit feeling it already. Plastic mount. But if you NEED a metal mount, may I suggest you are being a little rough with your camera. *UPDATE* The plastic flanges on back were able to hold the camera securely to the lens, but NOT hold the rear cap securely to the lens. I've tried many different rear lens caps that fit snugly on other lenses. So I think this is beyond cheap feel and has to be called CHEAP BUILD.
Con: This lens is a little (ok, maybe not so little) slow to focus in dim light, sometimes it misses altogether when I think other lenses of mine would have had no difficulty.
Con: I never gave Inner Focusing much thought on my other lenses until I used this. The front of this lens rotates AND moves in and out a LOT while focusing, so much so that you MAY even want to recompose your shot. The length of this lens changes almost an inch across the focus range. I just checked my Sigma 70-300 and found that it does also, but I've never seen it make as much difference in the viewfinder as I have with this Canon. Your perception may vary.
This lens and the soon to be arriving 18-55 IS as the XSi kit lens will allow me to carry one less lens to achieve an 18-250 IS range. For a little more money than the cost of both lenses you can get the Tamrom 18-250 but not have Image Stabilization. And now Sigma has an 18-200 WITH Optical Stablization for about what these 2 lenses cost retail, but in testing the 2 Canons produced better images.
Conclusion: A great EF-S lens for Canon users. (even if Nikon had to force Canon to make it for us.)
Customer Review: Great telephoto lens to complement your kit lens
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first lens that I've purchased and kept outside my kit lens (18-55). I mentioned kept because believe it or not, I bought the 70-200 F4L non-IS. I won't be giving any technical review about this lens as that is pretty much covered by the other reviewers here. I'll just share my story to help out other beginners who are having a hard time as well contemplating on what lens to get to complement their kit lens.
At first, I definitely wanted to buy a telephoto lens so I can shoot objects from a distance and I really like to try the lens out in a zoo. I then narrowed my choices between EF 70-300 IS USM and 70-200 F4L non-IS (didn't want 55-250 then because I didn't like the plastic mount). Since the latter would end up costing almost the same or even less (comes with hood and pouch plus the free filter amazon offers), I went for it without even thinking. Before the package arrived, I already had second thoughts and tried to cancel the item. Since I tried out the amazon prime 2 day shipping, the package came really fast so I wasn't able to cancel but returned it as soon as I got it.
So why did I return the 70-200 F4L and settled for an EF-S 55-250?
- I don't get paid taking pictures, it's just a hobby.
- No one will really sit down and scrutinize the pictures I take. All Canon lenses take great shots compared to other brands. It's not like I'm posting the pictures I take in the net for public view.
- The beige color of the L lens is somewhat too loud for me. I don't want people to think I have that much cash or evern comment that I only have an XS body.
- No IS, I realized that I really need IS because I don't have any plans of getting a tripod soon and my hands are really shaky.
- Cost!
- Weight.
- Performance of 55-250 that I was able to research over the net. Of course it's nothing comapred to the L lens, no doubt about that. But if the pictures are viewed alone, without comparing to L lens, they are great.
- Max range is only at 200, I get an extra 50mm with 55-250.
- Missing the 56-69 mm.
Ok, the last 2 are just for my piece of mind because I opted with 55-250 but they don't really matter if you have the L lens. If you do become a pro in the future, you'd definitely get something better than the 70-200 F4L.
Bottom line, this lens is no where in the league of L lenses. As one of the reviewers mentioned, it does the job. For value of money, I really love this lens. About the plastic mount, I realized that I wouldn't be using my camera that hard anyway. Plus, it'll be lighter.
I'm going to steal one of the reviews I read, it basically says that if you like the performance of your kit lens (18-55), you'll defintely like this as well. I totally agree, fast AF, sharp pictures, longer range version of 18-55.
Note that this is NOT a comparison between L lens and 55-250, or even 70-300. Just a decision experience that I wanted to share with a number of beginners out there.
Customer Review: Better than Sigma 18-250
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased a Sigma 18-250 zoom lens to replace my Canon kit lens (18-55)and this Canon 55-250 IS. After months of owning all 3 lenses I just now decided to do some testing/comparisons between the Sigma and the 2 Canons (cold winter boredom I suppose).
The Sigma looks and feels like a great lens, but as far as image quaility (i.e. sharpness), not so great in my tests.
I took identical photos with these lenses comparing variuous aperatures, focal lenghts, IS on/off, flash on/off, etc. (I was the same distance from subject, used the same subjects, used a tripod, etc.)
This Canon 55-250 IS is diffinately sharper than the Sigma, especially at the 250mm end where it counts the most to me. The Canon, though inexpensive and seemingly not built that great, took sharper pictures, hands down. The Canon peaked at around f8 for sharpness at 250mm (and it was pretty sharp), while the Sigma was around f10-11, and still not near sharp.
I didn't compare all of the image quality parameters, and perhaps the Sigma might fare better in others respects, but for me if I can't obtain relatively sharp pictures, the lens is, at best, only good for very general photography where sharpness doesn't matter.
Not only this, but at 250mm the Canon photos are obviously zoomed in further than the Sigma. There appears to be some where around 30mm differance. Either Canon has under rated their lens or Sigma has over rated theirs, or something. In any case the Canon gives you considerably more zoom than the Sigma. If you should happen to own both lenses as I do, try this for yourself to see if I'm just imagining this.
Also the Sigma did not seem to do any better than the Canon 18-55 IS kit lens, or maybe not even as good. But there wasn't a great difference on this end of the spectrum. The Sigma does OK here on this end. I might add, though, that the kit lense at 18mm was slightly wider than the Sigma at 18mm.
So now I don't know what to do. I guess I'm sort of stuck. If I don't care what my pictures look like the Sigma is an OK one-size-fits-all lens for vacations and long hikes. But why not just use my really nice point & shoot that takes better pictures and has an even longer focal range? Or I can just go back to changing my el-cheapo Canon lenses again.
Bottom line, the Cannon 55-250 IS lens is 5 star for what it is and what it does. Its not an L lens by any means, but for 250 bucks, give or take, its a pretty respectable lens. I've taken some pretty awesome pictures of birds-in-flight with this lens at 250mm! I might add here that pictures from this lens usually require a little post-prossessing, at least that has been my experience. This, however, usually involves quick, farely minor enhancements.
Customer Review: Excellent value
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very good lens given its price. Like with any lens selection there
are compromises, and a more expensive lens is not necessarily better in all
respects. These are the main considerations for me:
* The lens comes with an excellent IS. One could probably save a hundred bucks
buying a non-IS lens in this focal range which may even be a bit better optically.
However, long range shots without IS are difficult, especially in low light. The
IS on this lens works very well, better compared to my Canon 28-135 IS and even
compared to the 100-400L. The IS really makes a lot of hand held shots possible
that one could not do with a non-IS lens.
* The lens is fairly cheaply built and has a plastic mount. However, the
trade-off is that it is also fairly small and light (the small size is also due
to the fact that it is a EF-S lens). My other tele-zoom is a 100-400L lens
which is built like tank, but it is also huge and weighs 3 pounds. In many cases
one does not want to carry that much weight around, and that is where this lens
comes in really handy.
* Image quality: No, it cannot quite match the 100-400L, but it comes surprisingly
close. Of course, the 100-400L costs 5 times as much. Lack of good color
saturation is the most notable deficiency. On the other hand images are very sharp.
For outdoors one should get a hood, there is quite a bit of glare in shots with
frontal sunlight.
* Zoom range: the 55-250mm range makes the lens quite versatile. 250mm is long
enough for most outdoor sports, many nature shots, people from afar, etc. At the
other end 55mm is still good for close action, for example at a soccer field.
That is almost a factor 2 shorter compared to 100-(300/400) lenses.
It also provides a nice overlap with walk-around lenses, like the Canon 28-135 IS.
* Aperture: F4-5.6 is nothing to brag about, however, a faster lens would also
have to be much bigger, heavier, and costlier. And as long as you objects don't
move too much the IS makes the lens effectively faster. If Canon's 4 stop
improvement holds it would be equivalent to a non-ISF1-1.4, although F1.4-2 is
probably more realistic. A F1.4-2 with that focal range would have to be big,
heavy, and expensive, if it even existed.
In summary, this is an excellent second lens to complement a short zoom or a
walk-around lens. Very versatile and a lot of bang for the buck. In my case,
even though I own a 100-400L I still keep this lens because it is often more
practical because of the shorter focal length and the smaller size.
Customer Review: Great Value for a f4.0-5.6 lenss
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this lens at same time as the Canon T2i to pick up where the 18-55 kit lens leaves off, and have taken some very good photos with it.
However, I learned taking photos at the Patriots vs Rams pre-season game that I will never get "pro" quality photos at night, not even at professional football games where the lighting is very good to ensure tv viewers get good visibility. Even with ISO at 1600 I was able to manage a shutter speed of only 400 at f5.6, not enough to get crisp shots of moving players. Shots taken when there was a slow down or pause in the action were very good, even at the above mentioned settings, but when the players were moving rapidly, the shots were a little soft. Post processing made them very satisfactory for personal enjoyment, but not for more more ambitious use.
Earlier I might have given the lens a 4, maybe even a 3, because of my game experience, but since the game I have learned a lot about lenses and I now know that the relatively low-light photos I got were the best I could expect from this f4.0-5.6 lens. If I were going to shoot a lot of night sports, I would be saving for a 2.8 zoom lens, but they are very, very expensive for a good one. An f2.8 lens is a much faster lens than a 4-5.6
In day time settings, I have consistently gotten clear, sharp shots but have not yet tried shooting kiteboarders, something I enjoy doing. However, my expectation is that I will get good shots because I'll be shooting during the day and able to shoot at 800 at a minimum, more likely 1000.
I have been practicing taking sports photos by photographing the batters in action for several local teams. Two of these games were in the late afternoon and I was shooting at 5 pm or later in October, meaning that light was becoming low. For these shots I put the camera in Tv mode and set the shutter speed at 1000. ISO was on auto and the camera was allowed to select the best ISO up to a maximum of 1600. At this time of day, even in the autumn light, I got very crisp shots. Many required some processing to improve exposure, but the results were very satisfactory because the subjects were sharp. People to whom I have shown the photos said they were "great".
In summary, for what I do most of the time, this lens is excellent. And I really appreciate the image stabilizer. I can't imagine buying a lens without it since 98% of the shooting I do is hand held.