Canon IS lenses

[sjj84]

Just wondering if anybody has any experience's of this lense:
http://www.onestop-digital.com/catal...products_id...
Seems a good price for a canon lense with image stabilizer. Currently got this sigma lense:
http://www.onestop-digital.com/catal...roducts_id=...
Would it be worth upgrading or just keeping what I've got? Can't afford any of the mega expensive lenses, nor would I get the use out of it.

[4hero]

your links do not work

[miniman]

http://www.onestop-digital.com/catalog/product_inf...

(EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS)

http://www.onestop-digital.com/catalog/product_inf...

(Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro)

I don't see that you are gaining much to be honest. You are losing 50mm at the long end, although gaining 15mm at the short end. The IS is going to help a little, however you don't mention what body you are using so you may get some benefit from tweaking up the ISO and gaining yourself a stop or two - at the expense of noise.

[sjj84]

Thanks for sorting the links out. I'm using a canon 400d body. Very new to all this photography lark. Mainly trying to take motorsport photos, wasn't sure if the IS would help at further distances.
Cheers

[miniman]

I honestly don't think it would. I have the Canon 70-200L IS and I rarely, if ever, use the IS. Admittedly it is a fast lens (f/2.8 throughout the range) so can tolerate lower light / faster shutter speed but nonetheless with a reasonable amount of light, the 300mm is going to be more use to you than the IS IMHO.

I enjoy taking motorsport photos but part of the attraction for me is wandering round the paddock grabbing detail shots. To that end I would recommend investing in a Canon 50mm f/1.8, for £60 it is a great little lens.

[RobDickinson]

sjj84 said:

Thanks for sorting the links out. I'm using a canon 400d body. Very new to all this photography lark. Mainly trying to take motorsport photos, wasn't sure if the IS would help at further distances.
Cheers

For a long lens and IS to work for you you need to drop below the minumim safe handheld shutter speed.

Which is typicaly 1/focal length. So at 250mm it'll be 1/250th (ok we has crop factor but ignor that for now)

So IS realy comes into play at 1/250th or slower and helps for 3 stops, so say down to 1/30th. So it allows you to take a picture between 1/250th and 1/30th, handheld , that you couldnt (sharply) before.

But remember, motorsports have fast moving things, unless you pan shot it anything slower than 1/250th is going to be a blury mess subject wise anyhow. (assuming no 'mode 2' panning IS).

And you should realy be using a tripod or monopod thus releaving any need for IS anyhow.

IS is handy but you've picked sport where it is its least helfull.

[arej]

I think IS is worth it, I have the 55-250 and having quite shaky hands I am glad I went for it rather than the Sigma because it has probably saved a few shots. I haven't had a chance to do any motorsport shots with it yet (looking forward to Le Mans but wouldn't mind practicing somewhere else first so I can get the hang of it!) but it has "automatic panning detection" apparently (rather than mode 2 on the better lenses) so the IS turns off and won't ruin your panning shots. You may want to use the lens in other situations and find IS useful then - Canon quote 4-stop compensation with IS on.
The other thing is I have a 450D which gets quite noisy if you push the ISO up - probably similar in the 400D too, so I am always quite reluctant to do that and that's a situation where IS can help.

[tim-b]

RobDickinson said:

IS is handy but you've picked sport where it is its least helfull.

Agreed, it's great for stuff like indoor or dusk/dawn photography where low light is always an issue and you want to avoid using flash, but I generally leave it switched off when I'm taking pics of moving subjects.

[sjj84]

Ah well if it's not going to help with fast moving objects then I probably won't bother. The Canon 50mm lense was going to be my next question. Read mixed reviews about it, but then I guess for the price it's going to be worth a try. Would I be better off getting that or a replacement to the 18mm-55mm kit lense that I got with the camera?

[RobDickinson]

Do you have a long lens? If not its always usefull.

The 50f1.8 is nice but has slow and poor AF and is built cheap. Apart from that its great.

If you have the old non IS kit lens then yes its well worth replacing with either the new IS kit lens, a tamron/sigma f2.8 zoom or sigmas 17-70.

[Mr E]

I run a 400d with that sigma 70-300 APO. It's a bit soft, but for the money I'm getting pretty good results shooting motorsports.

The Nifty-Fifty should be in everyones bag. I love that lens.