Canon 55-250mm Lens

I recently purchased a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens. What a mouth full. There’s a lot in that name, and all will be explained in a moment. I purchased this lens because I was looking for a telephoto lens with reasonable reach, price and stabilization. So far its been a great experience and I love working with this lens.

So what exactly is this creature?

1. Canon: This lens is made by Canon for the Canon EOS line.
2. EF-S: Its built for the EF-S mount (part where the lens attaches). It is only compatible with APS-C sized sensor based cameras in the Rebel (XTi, XS, XSi, T1i etc), semi pro XXD (7D, 20D, 40D, 50D etc) lines.
3. 55-250mm: A decent reach, and a very nice 4.5x range. See below for some comparison shots.
4. f/4.0-5.6: These are the max aperture values, depending where  the lens is on its zoom range. The lower the number the better, because smaller f-values mean wider aperture openings (and therefore more light, and clearer pictures in dark places). This lens is adequate, but not spectacular.
5. IS: Image Stabilization is a technology that corrects most camera shake. It makes pictures with longer shutter speeds (up to 1/10th in my experience) look nearly perfect.
6. Telephoto Zoom: A telephoto lens brings subject closer. This lens zooms (allowing you to move closer or further away from the scene by twisting instead of waling).

How far does this thing zoom? Do I need 300mm?

The lens will take you pretty close to the action, and to this point I haven’t regretted purchasing a 250mm over a 300mm lens. As you can see from the shots below (sorry they aren’t amazing, they’re just for the article), there is a massive zoom range. Its been more than adequate for wildlife, theatre and sports photos.

Lens at 250mm.

Lens at 55mm.

Any problems with 55-250?

Yes there are a few irritations. The first issue occurs in bright lighting outdoors. Exposure can be hit or miss, trending to be over-exposed when there is a problem. I suspect my Rebel XSi is metering incorrectly, and I wonder if other cameras would handle these situations better. The other issue is vignetting, which is quite noticeable at the 250mm focal distance with a wide open f/5.6 aperture.

Vignette in corners.

Notice blown-out detail in flowers.

Ok, how about some real pictures? Conclusions?

Here a few of mine, there’s plenty more on flickr. Despite the issues described above the lens performs well, and its definitely worth the low price. The lens is plastic, but built well. Chromatic aberration (colour fringing / bleeding) is well controlled. Image quality is comparable to the kit lens, surprisingly sharp through most of the range. Overall, I’d say this a great lens and I would recommend it to other photographers entering the world of Canon DSLRs.

If you’d like to read a more technical review, you should take a look at The Digital Picture’s assessment of the 55-250.