Canon 70-300 Lens Review

On of the first purchases most people want to make after buying a new camera is a telephoto lens.  The cheap Canon 70-300 for $199.99 at all the big box stores is an attractive option.  But is it worth it?

Well yes and no.  If you want super sharp high quality professional images then the answer is no.  If you want to shoot indoors or at night the answer is definitely no.

This picture was taken from about 30 ft on an overcast Southern California Day.

Despite those limitations it is a lens you should consider if you are on a budget.  You will never get professional level image quality, but you can take some very good pictures with this lens under the right circumstances.

In order for this lens to be effective you need a lot of light.  Sunlight not artificial light.  If you try to use this lens to take pictures indoors or at a night time outdoor event you better be ready for poor image quality.


The pictures below were taken at a fairly new baseball complex that has exceptional lighting for a non professional facility.  In fact the lighting is much better better than our local minor league baseball team has.  But it still was not enough to produce high quality images.  I know many of the parents at the game were more than happy with these pictures.  But to be honest, I didn't even post these to my sports website because the images were so poor.  These are two of the better pictures I captured with this lens.

The problem with this lens is it is a variable aperture.  What that means is as you zoom in, the lens lets less light into the camera.  The less light that gets in, the worse the image quality.  Yes you can bump the ISO up and lower the shutter speed, but this will introduce other problems into the image quality.

On a bright sunny day this is not an issue.  A Saturday morning soccer game will not be an issue for this lens.  An afternoon hike and you will get some great pictures.  But other than that you will have some issues.

During the daytime you can capture some nice images.
The may not be professional quality, but they can be very good.

The other glaring issue with this lens is how long it takes to achieve focus.  This thing is horribly slow.  You have to understand I primarily shoot and Canon pro series lens or even a Sigma lens.  When you go from those lenses to this one it is painful to wait for the camera to achieve focus.  While I do not have a way to actually measure the time, I can give you an example.

With the Cannon lens I can photograph a batter hitting the ball.  I can quickly pan over to the shortstop and as long as I can find him quick enough, photograph him field the ball the majority of the time in focus.  With the Sigma I can do this, but about 20% of the time the first photograph is out of focus.  With the Canon 70-300 I will never be able to do this.  If I am lucky, I may be able to get an in focus shot of the shortstop throwing the ball to first base.  That is because this lens takes a full second to search through the focal range and achieve focus.

For most people this probably is not an issue.  But I shoot sports professionally so it is a big deal for me.  If you just want to shoot your kid, its a non issue.  You focus on the player you want to photograph before the play starts and you snap the picture when you are ready.

One of the great things about this lens is the price.  At under $200 brand new in stores (and cheaper online) it is a bargain.  But you get what you pay for.  The build quality on this lens is far from the professional L series lens.  It is made of cheap lightweight plastic and the optics are far from the best.  Having said that just like a kit lens if you take good care of it, the lens will last.  But any banging around and this thing will probably fail to hold up.

If you are just starting out and on a budget, I would not hesitate to buy this lens if you know you will be shooting outdoors.  Otherwise I would wait and buy something better.  Sigma and Tamron both make high quality lenses that can be purchased in the $500-$1000 range online (used for the low end price) that will offer substantially better image quality and allow you to shoot in low light situations.  Those lenses also focus much faster than this lens.

I have added some good and bad shots to this post to give you and idea of what I am talking about.  It is up to you to decide what you can afford and what you are willing to sacrifice.