Canon superzooms - any good?

JohnN

JohnN

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Hi,

Since moving away from Canon I've lost touch with how they are nowadays, but a while back I bought my daughter (she's 7) a 550D back when I had my Canon kit and suddenly she's quite keen.

I have a couple of my old lenses but frankly with the exception of the 18-55 and the 50mm I'm a little wary of letting her use them as they're a little too expensive - so I came to thinking about superzooms.

I would have just let her continue as she is but she's been asking about swapping lenses and prefers the full sized DSLR to my M43 kit and wants to stick with Canon it seems :)

So what are your thoughts, are superzooms any good now, or should I say look to the good old 55-250 or perhaps one of the 70-300's (I think I'll stear clear of the 150-500 ;))
 
The first lens I got for my first DSLR was a Sigma 28-300mm f3.5-6.3 (I think that was the aperture range....) Technically it was hardly an inspiring lens but when used to its strengths it was ok and not only did it make a good day out and holiday lens I actually took some of my favourite shots with it.

These days I'm fairly certain that the 18-250mm super zooms will actually be better than that old Sigma and I think that they do make sense if they're used to their strengths and the urge to pixel peep can be resisted.
 
Thanks woof woof, I'll have a poke round flickr and look at some of the samples there, thankfully she's not caught pixel peeping yet ☺
 
Have a look at the Photozone reviews for lenses that you are interested in. Some of the 70-300's are excellent. Personally I cannot see the point in buying a lens that doesn't perform adequately across its range. You'd be better buying a shorter zoom of better quality.
 
Cheers, certainly if it were for me I'd always use ranges, but she's not as picky as me.
 
Have you thought about the 18-200? I had this when I first started out a few years ago and for what it was it was a good lens. You can pick one up second hand for a couple of hundred or less on Ebay (UK).
 
Just had a quick poke about and the Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM MACRO looks intriguing.
 
Gaz J said:
Have a look at the Photozone reviews for lenses that you are interested in. Some of the 70-300's are excellent. Personally I cannot see the point in buying a lens that doesn't perform adequately across its range. You'd be better buying a shorter zoom of better quality.
Click to expand...
Better lenses are better :D but for many shots a bit of barrel distortion here or pincushion there just doesn't matter and ultimate sharpness doesn't matter in a lot of whole images either.

I've had some nice lenses but I do still remember that 28-300mm I had and the biggest issue with it IMVHO wasn't really the optical performance it was the aperture range as at the longer end you're starting at f6.3 and you're going to need a fast shutter speed if shooting handheld at 300mm and that could mean a high ISO setting.

For me these lenses make most sense as day out and holiday lenses for good light shooting when you don't want the hassle of swapping lenses and prefer the flexibility of a super zoom even if that means taking a minor image quality hit.
 
IIRC the 50-250 has a plastic camera mount, not metal. It must be of reasonable strength but don't know how well it would stand up to knocks.
 
I have a Canon EF-S 55-250mm F4-5.6 IS. It's small, light and cheap but does a great job. The plastic mount is really not an issue and because the lens is really light.
I think they have updated it and done a version II but i think changes are only cosmetic. It's a great lens for the price.
 
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