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Rating: 
Summary: Great value for price; some caveats on performance
Review: I bought this lens along with a 28-105mm zoom to get a wide coverage of focal lengths for as little money as possible. At the same time, I wanted to maximize my sharpness at 300mm for bird and astronomy photography. If this is your goal, then this is the perfect lens. It is significantly sharper than the 75-300mm lens at 300mm, while still staying under $300. If saving money is your absolute priority, then go with the 75-300mm.
In the end, I have become dissatisfied with the sharpness at 300mm. As stated in other reviews, it really drops off after about 200mm. At full zoom, I am finding the softness intruding on my pictures so I have started using it only as a 100-200mm zoomer. The 1.6x crop on my Canon 300D makes up for this somewhat, but it's still a bit of a letdown.
Another aspect of this lens that I have found aggrivating is the tendancy for the lens to zoom/unzoom itself if mounted vertically. The weight of the forward elements is suffient to actuate the zooming mechanism. Sometimes this happens quickly and noticeably, but I've had long-exosure shots where the lens has slowly zoomed out during the exposure and ruined it (weird effect, but not what I was after). Astrophotography in particular tends to see frequent use of the lens in a vertical position and this lens is really not the right choice if you're going to be aiming up.
Rating: 
Summary: Best tele-zoom in its price range
Review: I love this camera! My husband gave it to be for Christmas last year. It is easier to use than my compact 35-mm camera is. Very, very easy to use. Just took it on vacation and pictures came out fabulous. When on vacation, I had several people comment on the camera and ask how I liked it. When I was purchasing souveniers at one vacation spot, I was asked if I was a professional photography. I had a good laugh over that one. So far have only used it in the totally automatic mode and have not been disappointed. Tested it this summer with close-ups to see what it could do and was not disappointed there either. I think I'll ask for the 300 mm lense this Christmas.
Rating: 
Summary: REVIEW FOR CANNON EOS REBEL TI
Review: I love this camera! My husband gave it to be for Christmas last year. It is easier to use than my compact 35-mm camera is. Very, very easy to use. Just took it on vacation and pictures came out fabulous. When on vacation, I had several people comment on the camera and ask how I liked it. When I was purchasing souveniers at one vacation spot, I was asked if I was a professional photography. I had a good laugh over that one. So far have only used it in the totally automatic mode and have not been disappointed. Tested it this summer with close-ups to see what it could do and was not disappointed there either. I think I'll ask for the 300 mm lense this Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: We get what we pay for. But maybe a little more with this le
Review: This lens is very good. Picture is very sharp with 100-200 mm. and it's perfect for head&body portrait. I love this lens. In 300 mm area you can see softness but it's not much. And I compared with 28-105,this one is sharper at 100 than28-105 @105, and it shows much less distortion. Compared with 75-300mm USM, this one seems sharper than 75-300, with the focus speed almost the same. Of course, there are other better ones(like 70-200 f2.8L or other fixed focal telephoto lenses), but look what you pay for, it's really a good deal for amateur photographers.
Rating:
Summary: We get what we pay for. But maybe a little more with this le
Review: This lens is very good. Picture is very sharp with 100-200 mm. and it's perfect for head&body portrait. I love this lens. In 300 mm area you can see softness but it's not much. And I compared with 28-105,this one is sharper at 100 than28-105 @105, and it shows much less distortion. Compared with 75-300mm USM, this one seems sharper than 75-300, with the focus speed almost the same. Of course, there are other better ones(like 70-200 f2.8L or other fixed focal telephoto lenses), but look what you pay for, it's really a good deal for amateur photographers.
Rating:
Summary: We get what we pay for. But maybe a little more with this le
Review: This lens is very good. Picture is very sharp with 100-200 mm. and it's perfect for head&body portrait. I love this lens. In 300 mm area you can see softness but it's not much. And I compared with 28-105,this one is sharper at 100 than28-105 @105, and it shows much less distortion. Compared with 75-300mm USM, this one seems sharper than 75-300, with the focus speed almost the same. Of course, there are other better ones(like 70-200 f2.8L or other fixed focal telephoto lenses), but look what you pay for, it's really a good deal for amateur photographers.
Rating:
Summary: Best tele-zoom in its price range
Review: Very light and compact. This makes a great "traveling" lens. I take about 15% of my pictures with this lens, mostly out on hikes where I don't want to haul around my expensive & heavy 70-200 f/2.8 L. This lens paired with an EF 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 USM or EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM will give you a compact, light-weight package that you can take along on trips or nature hikes, and cover all of the useful focal lengths. Much better image quality than Canon's EF 75-300 lenses. Ring USM for fast auto-focus, but no image stabilization. Good build quality for the money spent. Sharpness drops off noticably past 200mm or so, with some flaws around the edges, but images are still acceptable for the most part. Great lens for 10D/Rebel/300D digital cameras, since the 1.6x cropping will eliminate the flaws at the egdes of the picture at the longer focal lengths, and make this lens effetively a 150-450mm. Best used stopped down to f/8 or f/11, in good light or with fast film (or digital camera set at ISO 400+). Not recommended for low-light situations, but could be useful for indoor flash close-up portraits. For the $250-$300 price range, this lens can't be beat. To get noticeably better image quality, you would have to spend twice as much. If you're inclined to do so, check out the Canon EF 70-200 f/4 L.
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