Canon IS 55 - 250 Zoom lens

[AndyP & Lenore]

Got this from Santa and had the first real chance to try it out today at Knockhill.

Lens Page on Canon Web Site (http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/EF_Lenses/Image_Stabilization_Lenses/EF-S_55-250mm_f_4-5_6_IS/index.asp)

Love the results from it. Much sharper clearer pics.

Using my 70 - 300 USM lens:
http://www.reachercreatures.com/fun_stuff/knockhill_sept_07_11.jpg

Using my new IS 55-250 Lens:
http://www.reachercreatures.com/knockhill_march08/knockhill_march08_55.JPG

Still got lots of practice to do, especially on composition, but so far, I'm loving this new lens.

A.;)

[AeroJonny]

fantastic andy! That's like night and day!

[vintageb3]

I was looking forward to seeing the results of your new lens Andy...and was not disappointed!

Great action pics....

mark

[euan]

Mighty impressive!

[drb5374]

Can't say i expected THAT much of a difference, but it's good to see where the extra pennies go! :cool:

That was the one thing that put me off going for a Canon or Nikon...the IS lens costs. But when you get pics that clear, the price suddenly becomes forgotten.

[AndyP & Lenore]

Cheers guys.

What gets me is that I bought the 70-300 about 8 years ago and I seem to remember it costing me about £200.

The 55-250 IS lens was bought in December last year by Santa and he was kind enough to leave the receipt in the box in case anything went wrong with it and it was..... £200.

TBH, I'm looking forward to seeing the pics Stephen was taking with his huuuuuuuge 100-400 IS lens he was using on Sunday. Now that is a serious piece of kit.:eek: :D

A.:D

[drb5374]

Do you adjust the settings manually Andy, or just leave it in Auto?


I'm happy enough leaving mine in Auto, but i know i'm wasting the camera by doing so. I just feel totally amatuer if i have a stab at changing the settings. :o

[AndyP & Lenore]

Do you adjust the settings manually Andy, or just leave it in Auto?


I'm happy enough leaving mine in Auto, but i know i'm wasting the camera by doing so. I just feel totally amatuer if i have a stab at changing the settings. :o

Forgot to answer this earlier.

I played around with the settings a wee bit. Most of the pics I took I used a shutter priority speed of 125. I found that the longer the shutter was open the less sharp the image was because of camera shake etc., and the shorter the shutter was open the sharper the image was, but you loose the "speed" look - you could see the spokes of the wheels and the background wasn't blurred.

To be honest, you really should play around with the settings, it's really the only way to learn what effects you get with different settings. And one of the beauties of Knockhill is, is that (especially with three rounds) there are loads of opportunities to try different things without worrying what the result is gonna be. Like I said in another thread, I took over 330 photie's on Sunday. I'm happy with 130 of them, and particularly proud of about 10 of them. With film there's no chance I could have been so adventurous. I'd have shot a couple of reels and said - that's it. No more.

A.:D

[drb5374]

Excellent thanks for that. :cool:

Totally agree about the trial thing, but i find the viewfinder on my A100 just doesn't represent the true picture very well. :(

Will get out and about a lot more now the weather is getting better. I totally forgot about Knockhill again, otherwise i would have been there. :rolleyes: Will try and get up for the GT Championship.

[Bumble]

Wow .. that's looking great Andy - fab difference, like the way it's captured the movement of the wheels but still very sharp.

[vintageb3]

I'd have shot a couple of reels and said - that's it. No more.

A.:D

Tight git!:D ...Sure yer no a Fifer?

mark

[Sheilz]

The contrast between the pics is remarkable. Did you change the settings at all when you changed the lense? Were both taken at 125? Different lenses would need diff settings even if they're from the same stable. Maybe 125 just isnt the best speed for your older lense. My sis has just bought herself an IS lense and she finds the quality of some of her photos greatly improved. I've still to buy one of these. I really should though coz I tend to stick with the original lense and can never be bothered changing lenses back and fore and the original is prob the poorest in terms of pic quality of all the canon lenses.
Agree with using the manual settings though. The auto setting gives ok pics but much better by using it in manual mode. Otherwise just as well sticking with a compact - lighter to carry as well. Manual's mair fun and besides the finished products can be quite interesting. I'm trying to get my head round HD pics but not getting anywhere very fast!
Forgot to say.....smashing pic.

[KenL]

The auto setting gives ok pics but much better by using it in manual mode. Otherwise just as well sticking with a compact - lighter to carry as well.

Manual should give better results in the hands of someone who knows what effect they are trying to achieve.

An SLR on auto will always provide better pics than a compact due to better lens, no?

I used to have a film SLR, loved it but sold it to buy a digital compact digital years ago - really fancy getting a digi-SLR sometime.

[Sheilz]

Manual should give better results in the hands of someone who knows what effect they are trying to achieve.

An SLR on auto will always provide better pics than a compact due to better lens, no?

I used to have a film SLR, loved it but sold it to buy a digital compact digital years ago - really fancy getting a digi-SLR sometime.


Absolutely right. When I first got my DSLR over a year ago I used manual mode as a matter of course but now several thousand efforts later I use the manual all the time. Not so sure about auto always being better than manual on a compact. I've seen some cracking photos taken with compacts which have been way better than stuff I've done irrespective of the setting used. Guess some people are just naturals with a camera in their hand where as with me its a def hit or miss. Good fun trying though! :D

[AndyP & Lenore]

Hi Sheilz, many thanks for the kind words re the photie. And 10 outta 10 to you for even thinking about motor racing photo's after your mammoth MINI run down to Oxford and back up the next day. You must have been exhausted.

The pics:

Here's the stats:

The top pic taken with my 70 to 300mm USM Canon Lens in September 2007
Iso: 200
Focal Length: 100
Aperture: F8
Shutter speed: 1/320th second.


The bottom pic taken with my 55 to 250 Canon Image Stabilization lens in March 2008
Iso: 200
Focal Length: 171
Aperture: F10
Shutter speed: 1/125th second

As you can see, the photo's were taken 6 months apart. What I'll do next time I'm at Knockhill is take some using my old 70 - 300 lens and then take some with my new lens and try not to change the settings too much. See what happens.

But, TBH, I think the improved picture quality of the IS lens is probably down to much better optics and the image stabilization system working. Because the shutter was open almost 3 times as long using this new lens, yet there is no fuzziness, no picture shake and the focus is spot on. Believe me, that's more down to better lens technology than my skills as an amateur photographer.;)

As for settings, I never use Manual. I almost always use Programme AE, which is one step short of full auto, TBH. However, for the Knockhill pics I was using Shutter Priority (TP). I think full manual is not really doable taking photo's of moving images. I may be wrong, and no doubt there are far more accomplished photographers out there who are comfortable enough in their skills to use full manual, but I'm not one of them. I find that either TP or AP will give you the results you're looking for with fast moving subjects, with you only needing to look after one of the variables that make a good shot. All, just IMHO.:cool:

A.:D

[Mini Ecosse]

Hi Sheilz, many thanks for the kind words re the photie. And 10 outta 10 to you for even thinking about motor racing photo's after your mammoth MINI run down to Oxford and back up the next day. You must have been exhausted.

The pics:

Here's the stats:

The top pic taken with my 70 to 300mm USM Canon Lens in September 2007
Iso: 200
Focal Length: 100
Aperture: F8
Shutter speed: 1/320th second.


The bottom pic taken with my 55 to 250 Canon Image Stabilization lens in March 2008
Iso: 200
Focal Length: 171
Aperture: F10
Shutter speed: 1/125th second

As you can see, the photo's were taken 6 months apart. What I'll do next time I'm at Knockhill is take some using my old 70 - 300 lens and then take some with my new lens and try not to change the settings too much. See what happens.

But, TBH, I think the improved picture quality of the IS lens is probably down to much better optics and the image stabilization system working. Because the shutter was open almost 3 times as long using this new lens, yet there is no fuzziness, no picture shake and the focus is spot on. Believe me, that's more down to better lens technology than my skills as an amateur photographer.;)

As for settings, I never use Manual. I almost always use Programme AE, which is one step short of full auto, TBH. However, for the Knockhill pics I was using Shutter Priority (TP). I think full manual is not really doable taking photo's of moving images. I may be wrong, and no doubt there are far more accomplished photographers out there who are comfortable enough in their skills to use full manual, but I'm not one of them. I find that either TP or AP will give you the results you're looking for with fast moving subjects, with you only needing to look after one of the variables that make a good shot. All, just IMHO.:cool:

A.:D

Are you using RAW or JPEG?

Stephen

[AndyP & Lenore]

Are you using RAW or JPEG?

Stephen

JPEG for both Stephen. Never used RAW.

A.

[monsta mo mini admin]

You should look at using RAW - there's another huge step up in image quality. You're dealing with a file that's 16-bit with no compression - from the EOS 40D that's a 50 meg file.

If you intend to crop in or resize an image - there is actually more information stored in the file than is visible so when you reinterpolate the image, it has data to create the extra pixels so you avoid the horrid blurry pixels visible in images that have been resized more than about 115%.

Shooting in JPEG you're degrading image quality from the off.

The thing that puts most folk off using RAW is the file size and resulting processing and storage problems. Use something like APERTURE or Lightbox and you can easily grade and edit hundreds of shots in no time.

[AndyP & Lenore]

You should look at using RAW - there's another huge step up in image quality. You're dealing with a file that's 16-bit with no compression - from the EOS 40D that's a 50 meg file.

If you intend to crop in or resize an image - there is actually more information stored in the file than is visible so when you reinterpolate the image, it has data to create the extra pixels so you avoid the horrid blurry pixels visible in images that have been resized more than about 115%.

Shooting in JPEG you're degrading image quality from the off.

The thing that puts most folk off using RAW is the file size and resulting processing and storage problems. Use something like APERTURE or Lightbox and you can easily grade and edit hundreds of shots in no time.

Cheers for the suggestions MMM.

The only problem with APERTURE and Lightbox is they are MAC programs. All my image capturing/editing/uploading is done from home - on my PC.

I also need to get a decent size memory card, as 1gb is too small for RAW images. I would only get about 20 on it.

A.

[Sheilz]

I sometimes use raw but as Andy said 1gb doesnt allow many pics, I get just about 90 which isnt very much given that the majority are just awful or at best mediocre. Got myself a 4gb card which is at least enough for a days work/fun. On jpeg large setting it gives about 800 which is awfully handy for when I'm out of town. Saves me having to take the laptop with me.

I do fancy an IS lense. Keep hearing very good things about them and the two pics posted prove the argument. Agree with the settings for moving objects though coz manual does need changes and by the time you find the right one the action's past. Been caught out with that a few times. I like to keep an eye on families of birds through the spring and summer - watching the babies grow. Last year it was a family of swans, this year I'm tagging a heron - well I would be if the darned thing would stop flying away faster than I can get the camera set up. I keep coming home with hundreds of pics heron-less! One of these days.........:rolleyes:

I didnt go to bed till 3am on Sat/Sun, spent six hours cleaning and polishing specy on Sun, then back on the road again Mon, with a couple of hundred miles notched up both yesterday and today. Got a bit panicy yesterday coz by the time I got home I was thinking that I was fed up driving :eek::eek::eek: Fortunately today was back to normal whizzing about in my we mannie :thumbs up: