Buyer's review of the Canon EF-S 55-250 f4-5.6 IS Camera Zoom Lens

The Canon EF-S 55-250 f4-5.6 IS is a good budget telephoto zoom lens for Canon EOS cameras that have the EF-S lens mount.

Since I first bought my Canon EOS 300D and later the EOS 550D, I extensively used the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III lens as a wide telephoto lens. This is a very nice entry level telephoto lens and I took many great photos with it. However, I was impressed with the image stabilisation features on my EF-S 17-55mm 2.8 IS USM wide angle zoom lens, so I decided to buy a telephoto zoom lens with similar image stabilisation functionality. I thought this feature would be especially useful on a telephoto lens.

The first thing to bear in mind is that the EF-S 55-250 f4-5.6 IS lens has been specifically designed for the range of EOS cameras that have smaller digital sensors and hence have the EF-S lens mount. With the smaller image sensor on these cameras, the 55-250mm focal length is the equivalent of 88-400mm on a full frame 35mm camera. This is a good focal length for taking portraits as well as wildlife and sports photos.

In use I have found that the EF-S 55-250 lens performs much as the classic 75-300mm. The aperture is fairly slow so it's hardly a pro quality lens. The lens works best in sunny weather. But focussing is fast and the image stabiliser works well. The lens is also very light and compact. Its focal length makes it a good companion to the 17-55 and 18-55 wide angle lenses that most EOS owners also have, so it's possible to take a wide variety of photos with just these two lenses.

All in all this is a decent telephoto zoom lens for Canon EOS systems. All of the photos on this hub were taken with the Canon EF-S 55-250 f4-5.6 IS lens, so I'll let them speak for themselves.

As well as the  EF-S 55-250 I'm also a big fan of the Canon 60mm EF-S f/2.5 USM Macro lens and the remarkable EF-S 17-55mm 2.8 IS USM wide angle zoom lens.