The economy sucks. The real estate industry, which has provided for my living for the past 15 or so years is pretty much dead and lately I've found myself grubbing for whatever work I can get just to get by. I've also been eating a lot of oatmeal and looking forward to deer season so I can restock the freezer. So what do you do when you're cash strapped but find yourself really needing some new glass with a little reach? Since anything in Canon's L series was a pipe dream, I decided to take a chance on the budget 55-250, and I haven't been disappointed.
I'd been using the 28-135 lens that came with my Canon 50D but it was becoming increasingly frustrating, being not really wide enough on the wide end and not long enough on the other. It worked fine for portraits and casual people shots, but since I've already got the 18-55 lens, and a 1.8 nifty fifty, and most of my picture taking is landscapes and critters in the woods, something with more reach was necessary.
Luckily right at the time I decided to check one out they went on sale. Wandering around the local Wal-Mart one day I noticed the price had dropped from $299 to $199. Unfortunately they had just sold the last one. When I got back to the computer I checked around and found that Target had them in stock for $150. Even better. A couple of days later I was slapping it on the 50D and I headed out to see what it could do.
The first thing I noticed was that the 55-250 is definitely not made like the proverbial tank. The glass is housed in a plastic shell and it felt a whole lot flimsier than the 28-135. Of course that wasn't a surprise...it is a budget lens. The second thing I noticed was the image stabilization motor makes a little noise when engaged. It's barely audible and nothing to be concerned with, but it was noticeable. On the other hand, the IS works. Frame your shot, half press the shutter, and you can see the screen settle down quickly. I pulled off some acceptably sharp shots at 3 and sometimes 4 stops slower than without it. Nice.
The longer zoom range came in handy on some bird shots. Sure, the 70-300 would give you a tad more reach but at a slightly higher price. I can live with 250mm for now. I didn't have a problem with flare even though I was shooting without a hood, which Canon rarely feels the need to supply with their lenses, preferring instead to make you buy it separately, apparently so they can charge you an outrageous sum of money for a cheap piece of freaking plastic. I went ahead a bought an aftermarket hood off of Amazon for 6 bucks ($25 for the Canon...geez!), more for protection of the glass than anything. It works just as well.
Upon getting the RAW files downloaded into DPP (Canon's RAW converter) I immediately noticed how good the colors and contrast looked. In fact, I found myself using a whole lot less across the board adjustment, including sharpness, than I was used to with the 28-135. The difference seemed so noticeable that I pulled up some similar shots taken with the 28-135 and compared them side by side. I was slightly surprised at the difference but figured it might just be a fluke. Over the next couple of months of shooting however, I've become fairly convinced that this particular 55-250 copy is flat out smoking the 28-135. I'm not going to go so far as to say that will be true in every case...I may just have a sub-par 28-135. Based on some reading it seems Canon has had a problem with quality control on the 28-135; some folks love them, others don't. Some who weren't satisfied say that exchanging the lens for a new one fixed the problem, so I may just have a bad copy.
Ultimately I'm satisfied with the 55-250. It's not great, and I doubt I'd plunk down $300 for one, but if you can find one for $150 I'd recommend it to anybody.
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