Which telephoto?

[Mrs Pingu]

Currently we have a Tamron 70-300mm lens for our Canon DSLR (not full size sensor).
It's by no means the world's greatest lens but it can get some reasonable pics in good light with a tripod.

Anyhow,  it appears to be knackered now, it's bringing up a sensor error and a bit of Googling suggests either the aperture control is knackered or the lens contacts are, either way I don't think it's worth getting the lens repaired as it will cost more than the lens did.

So I'm looking for a new lens.  While a Canon L lens would be lovely, the shorter one I bought off Mike of this parish takes beautiful pics but weighs as much as a small child, therefore it gets left a home a lot, which defeats the purpose a bit.

So I'm open to suggestions for a replacement. It must go to at least 300mm (says Pingu). I would like it to not weigh as much as a small car but also take okay pics. I realise I'm asking for the holy grail but don't expect professional output from it...

[Biggsy]

It wouldn't be mad to just get another Tamron, considering how rare the fault is and how cheap the lens is off eBay.

Try cleaning the contacts first, if you haven't already.

[Mrs Pingu]

It wouldn't be mad to just get another Tamron, considering how rare the fault is and how cheap the lens is off eBay.

Try cleaning the contacts first, if you haven't already.

Seems like quite a lot of Tamron users see this fault! Already cleaned everything.

[Biggsy]

It won't be a lot in proportion to the number of happy users, which could even be in to the millions for this very common lens.

Of course you could take the opportunity to get something better anyway, perhaps with less purple fringing.  I'll leave suggestions to others....

[LEE]

It's hard to overlook the image stabilised Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD at the price. (Not sure if that's the one you have already though).

By all accounts it's not so sharp at 300mm end of things but it's less than £250 !!

I Ebay'd an old canon 70-300 my dad gave to me.  I was ultimately disappointed with its lack of sharpness and, typically, it's "tack sharpness" you are after with subjects requiring 300mm and above. It was a bit "Portraity" (which is fine if you are taking portraits).

Having said that an image stabilised lens will make up for a lack of sharpness to a large extent, bridging the gap between an unstabilised but sharp lens, especially at 300mm handheld.
My old 70-300 wasn't sharp OR stabilised so it was disappointing most of the time.

For tripod work though a lack of sharpness always leaves you wishing you'd spent a bit more money.

[Mrs Pingu]

No that's no the one we've got, nothing fancy like VC or USB on our one! Hmm, looks interesting... a bit heavy at 765g though!

[rogerzilla]

Biggest problem with zooms used to be the modest maximum aperture but that's less relevant with digital bodies that can use ISO 12800 or whatever without much loss of quality.  Distortion is still usually awful.  People fix it in Photoshop.  Ken Rockwell says people worry too much about lens sharpness but I can get a handful of shots back and tell you if a lens is a duffer, no problem at all (the Nikon Series E 28mm I bought recently is unaccceptably mediocre whereas the 35mm and 100mm are very good).

Image stabilisation is good but won't correct soft optics.  I can get a pin sharp photo at 1/125 with a 100mm lens anyway (I'll post one if you don't believe me) so I don't feel the need for IS.

[Jaded]

Image stabilisation doesn't stabilise moving subjects though.

[Polar Bear]

We're not Canon users but we've been mightily impressed with Sigma lenses and if we were in the market would be looking there first.   Our 17-70 is an absolute dream and seems to be permanently attached to the body these days.

Good glass still weighs though - it's unavoidable.

[Biggsy]

Biggest problem with zooms used to be the modest maximum aperture but that's less relevant with digital bodies that can use ISO 12800 or whatever without much loss of quality.

It's still a shame to use such high ISO, but that's the price for low cost and low weight.  Another upside of APS-C digital is that we get the equivalent of 450mm from 300mm.

[Jaded]

Which does not outweigh the downside of tiny pixels.

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm thinking about forgoing IS in the interests of weight saving.

[T42]

It's hard to overlook the image stabilised Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD at the price. (Not sure if that's the one you have already though).

By all accounts it's not so sharp at 300mm end of things but it's less than £250 !!

Got one in Nikon flavour.  The stabilization is so effective - or maybe enthusiastic - that you practically have to wrench it off-target if you want to pan, but for hand-held shots at 300mm it's great.

Not so sharp at 300, well, maybe. This was a 100% centre crop at 300mm f/5.6 before the forum SW resized it:



Click on through for full-size crop.

It's pretty light, too.  I'd go for the stabilization any day, and I've got a gammy arm.

[LEE]

Image stabilisation doesn't stabilise moving subjects though.

That's true enough but I never really understood what that argument was saying.
Tripods don't stabilise moving subjects either.  Image stabilisation is, with some fairly tight restrictions, a "virtual tripod".

A 300mm lens on a crop sensor is an equivalent 480mm lens.  Common wisdom says that requires a minimum 1/500 shutter speed to hand hold it for shake-free results.  Combine that with a max aperture of f/5.6 and you could be forced into high ISO (And I'm not personally convinced you'd get a  high success rate hand holding a 480mm lens even at 1/500th sec).

I think this short video demonstrates perfectly my experience of IS can do.  Yes it's video footage but you can easily see how it increases your chances of a sharp photo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=945YSd_M85E

[mike]

it's quite spendy but I was chatting to someone wielding a 70-300 DO lens last week (https://www.parkcameras.com/p/1240550/canon-lenses-ef-mount/canon/ef-70-300mm-f45-56-do-is-usm)  and he said images were on a par with the 70-200 f4, and it's a great size.

Or the other 70-300 (https://www.parkcameras.com/p/1240548J/canon-lenses-ef-mount/canon/ef-70-300mm-f4-56-is-usm) gets excellent reviews. 

[Mrs Pingu]

Update:
After some prevarication, yesterday I took the plunge and bought the Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD.
I'm impressed already. We've only played with it in the pub and in the flat as it's been mostly raining, but it's several orders of magnitude better than the old Tamron lens it replaced. The image stabilisation is great and it performs so much better in low light.
I'm glad I bought it eventually!

[T42]

Glad to hear it.  I was really impressed by it.

As me Da would have said, health to use it.