Sorry if you have had this question many times before. I am in the process of buying a camera and am hesitant in buying because:

I can buy the Canon eos300 for £350 which includes the standard 28-80 and the 70-300. However I'm going on Safari in September and from friends I have been told that it is a pain in the butt continuously changing lenses. Is taking the time to change lenses better than ending up with poor quality photos. I have been told that the 28-300 (Sigma) won lense of the year last year and I thought hey this will be a better and more efficient lense to use. Is this the case or will my photos be dissapointing. Everyone has different opinions I know but I would rather pay the extra and spent the extra time changing lenses to know that at the end of the day I will be happy with the photos.

I am know thinking of buying the Canon eos300 with the standard lense (28-80) for £250 and then buying the Sigma 70-300 (The Sigma lenses are supposed to be better than the cannon - is this right) for £179.

This is more expensive that the £350 package going but price doesn't bother me. Can you please confirm whether the larger lense will affect my photos or whether it is each to their own.

Thank you very much. Your opinions are greatly appreciated!

-- Vanessa McComb (nessmccomb@hotmail.com), March 26, 2002

Answers

None of the x-300 consumer grade zooms are excellent at the long end, and that applies whether x is 28, 100, or something in between. To get really good optics in the 300mm range of things is expensive - you've pretty much got to step up to pro-grade lenses.

I've never been on a safari, but even in a zoo, where the animals are usually closer than I'd imagnie they would be on safari, I usually use my 100-300, and usually at the long end, and I often wish it were longer. I suspect your main use for the 28-80, or for the wide end of a 28-300, will be for landscape shots, and at times when you're looking for animals to photograph, you'll have the 70-300 mounted, so you'll only need to change lenses when you want to switch between landscapes and animals.

Is the Canon 100-300 f/5.6L in your price range? It's almost certainly the cheapest professional-grade x-300 zoom you'll find; see http://www.photo.net/nature/x-300 for more info on some of your choices, including this one. If you're looking for one on the used market, make sure you get the L lens - there's also a Canon EF 100-300 f/5.6 (same name except for the missing L) that's just another consumer-grade zoom.

-- Steve Dunn (steved@ussinc.com), March 27, 2002.

One problem with most 300mm zooms is the slow aperture. f/5.6 for the 70-300's and even slower for the 28-300's. I would think that would be a problem. The Canon 75-300 with image stabilization would be of some help on a safari.

Also, in my tests, the Sigma 70-300 DL zoom was not quite as sharp as the Canon 75-300 or the 100-300 USM. The Sigma 75-300 APO is reported to be just barely sharper than the Canon's, but the difference is marginal and the Canon's are built better and the Canon 100-300 USM will focus faster & handle better as well.

To get good optics with long lenses, you have to spend more money than any of these options, but if you take any stock in photo magazine reports the 70/75 to 300mm zooms are nearly always better than the 28-200/300 zooms.

Also with the standard zoom from Canon, the 24-85, 28-105 and 28-135 are quite a bit better than the 28-80 or 28-90 Canons in terms of build quality and focus speed. They also have full time manual focusing (FTM) where the cheaper Canon's (and Sigmas) do not. Also these more upscale Canon zooms are somewhat sharper in have less distortion than the cheaper zooms from Canon or Sigma, Tamron, etc.

If you buy a Canon made lens, you will not have problems with future compatibility. With the Sigma's, they will almost surely not work with some future Canon camera. At least that's been the consistent history.

There are good reasons to buy third party lenses (usually related to price), but the savings with the low-end zooms just doesn't justify not buying Canon made stuff. You will get what you pay for.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), March 27, 2002.

I had the Sigma 70-300 APO macro for a while. Whilst it was quite satisfactory in terms of optics, the slow, noisy AF, extension/rotation during focus, etc, just drove me mad. I was used to Ring USM lenses, and the sigma was very disappointing in that respect.

I'd go for a Canon 100-300 USM, or look for a second-hand 300 F4L (which should be obtainable in good condition for around £500), although that is probably somewhat beyond your budget.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), March 28, 2002.