canon ef75-300mm usm or ef75-300mm usm is

I am contemplating buying Canon ef75-300mm usm or the

same model with image stabilizer built in Canon ef75-300mm IS

I notice the price is more than double with IS model. Will

it make a big difference in picture quality,ease of use in outdoor

when I don't want to use tripod and want to use slower film for picture quality. I want to use it mainly for taking picture of kids.

Is it worth it to buy expensive IS model.

Peter,

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Its worth the price. As far as image quality is concern its basically

the same lens with some sort of elec. device that take cares of small

jitters that we often encounter when handholding long lenses. With

this lens you'll be able to use much slower speed to enable you to

utilize low light environment. It will be helpful specially when

taking picture of kids.

I agree with Alvin. However, it should be noted that the performance

deteriorates rapidly beyond 150mm. At 300mm, the weakest focal length,

the performance is just poor. For mid-sized prints this should be

still sufficient but for slides and posters something sharper is

certainly more desirable. However, that's the point where the dilemma

starts because there're very few decent x-300mm zooms out there. If

you need more quality you may try to find a EF 100-300/5.6L - the

optics is great though the mechnical construction is ancient. If

you've the money there's the 100-400L IS. Another option would be a EF

70-400/4L + EF 1.4x or a EF 200/2.8L +1.4. All more expensive

obviously but probably more fun on the long run.

I think by describing the performance at 300mm as "poor" you may be

misleading a beginner. By professional standards, the 75-300 at 300mm

isn't great but it's often adequate. By typical consumer standards

it's not a bad lens. Many people consider it to be capable of yielding

quite satisfactory 8x10 prints - and most people never print bigger

than that!

What Bob said. And, personally, I don't think the IS is really

cost-justified on this lens ($490US vs $210US). It's fairly slow

(f/5.6 at the 300 end), and ends up being pretty light (16.8 oz).

While the IS may helps some in lower light, it's really not

<i>that</i> difficult to handhold this lens when necessary. If you

can afford the IS version, great. If have the non-IS, and have never

felt a need for stabilization when handholding it...

Should one consider the 100-300 F4-5.6 USM over the 75-300? It

reviews in Photozone are higher.

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Since I'm about to make a decision on a consumer zoom, yours answers

will be appreciated.

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Thanks, Ted