lens for xsi

[natwinston]

ok, long story short, my dad has bought his first dslr, an xsi body only. he is

disabled and pretty much only can sit on the porch and take pictures of birds. he

is on a very fixed income due to his disability and can spend maybe $200 on a

lens.

so my question is: would the 75-300mm usm III lens be good enough for his

purposes, or is it just going to disappoint? i know this lens gets bashed in every

review i've seen but he's used to a 4 year old p&s so i was hoping this would still

be pretty good for him.

sorry if this has been asked hundreds of times before, i'm pretty new to the hobby

myself and i went the nikon route so i don't know much about the canon lenses.

the xsi does look pretty sweet though :)

[derrickdehaan]

I bought my XTi with a Tamron AF 75-300 f4-5.6 LD Macro lens. Just over a hundred bucks, but I get darn good pictures for the price. The downside is that the front element rotates when focusing so circular polarizers, etc can be a pain to use. I have not used the lens you mention, but thought I would mention this one.

 

Derrick

[rainer_t]

In the 200$ range, you'll likely not find a lens that is signifficantly better than the old EF 75-300.

 

If you consider used glass, you might also have a look on the EF 100-300/4.5-5.6 USM.

(Its signifficantly better build than the 75-300, and it also has a true ring USM, FTM, and a non-rotating frontlens).

[danield]

Nat

 

I'd say try to stretch to a Canon 55-250mm IS lens. It's $280 at Amazon.com - a bit over the budget, but much, much more useful than the canon 75-300. There are two reasons for this - it has better optics and it has image stabilization(IS), which is invaluable at this length.

 

I wouldn't buy any telephoto zoom without IS these days - and the 55-250mm is the cheapest one you can get. I got one just recently and I'm very happy with it.

[chrisjb]

I`d agree with a lil extra try the new 55 250 IS, more manageable FL with the x1.6 bodies :)

[natwinston]

thanks so much everybody for your input

i'll check out the tamron and maybe i can budget in one of the others for a fathers day gift.

i really do appreaciate everyone's time

thanks :)