Telephoto dream come true

Published by Neville Brem at Aug 2, 2024

A tram in Zurich

For the most part of my photography journey (even back in times where I didn’t even have a camera), I wanted a telephoto or telezoom lens. Now I finally got it! And it’s amazing!

We are of course talking about the Canon EF 70-300 F/4-5.6 IS II USM. It is a lens that I also mentioned in my previous post, and that I am a big fan of. I think it was a great choice buying this. The “retail” price (if you can even call it like this, since the lens is quite old) here in Switzerland is around 600-700 Swiss Francs, which is about 700-800 US Dollars. I picked it up on a Swiss second-hand online shop for 250 Swiss Francs, so about 300 USD. Now that I call a steal. I am so proud I picked this up. And let me tell you: it is a pleasure to work with.

It came this morning in the mail, I unpacked it, smacked it on my 600D body and went shooting some stuff in the afternoon. I just went round shooting a bit in the city, like the photo above. I’ve also gone trainspotting from a bridge, where I took this photo:

Train from Negrelli Bridge

It is actually shot through a fence, which you can’t make out because it’s to close to me. Just a nice detail in my opinion. What immediately stood out for me were a few things:

  1. No fringing of colors at the edges of high contrast objects (for example a darker building in front of the bright sky)
  2. Really good AF
  3. The amazing build quality
  4. The weight.

Now, regarding the build quality, I was really blown away by this lens. I didn’t expect it to be so high in quality. The plastic feels super good, the switches are snappy and the ring feels nice to turn. I’ve started with the 18-55mm kit lens. This felt a bit… wanky and it made weird sounds when shaking it. But it was just the cheap kit lens, so I don’t blame it. Then I had the 24-105mm, which already felt much better. But this lens just kills it. It just feels so great. The autofocus is also great because of the Nano USM motors. The lens is of course a bit heavier, but I guess that’s just because of all of the glass and so on.

I didn’t shoot any rowing with this lens, but I think it’s gonna be just fine. So all in all, a great lens. I am very happy with it.