BrianHursey.com

I final found out that my old 30 year old flash will be safe to have on my Canon 350d. So now that I finally have an external flash I can use in manual what to do… First of all I need to get rid of this harsh light. So after some searching I found at least a some what pleasing to the eye solution. Also a plus to how it looks is how much it costs. All you need is some wax paper, scissors, tape, and card stock. I would give you how to but some one already did that for you. How to make a wax paper flash diffuser

Finished product:

Before: Taken at 45 degree angle flash head. 1/80 f5.6 full manual. Flash power set at f5.6 without diffuser

After: Taken at 45 degree angle flash head. 1/80 f5.6 full manual. Flash power set at f5.6 with diffuser

Note: make sure before putting a old flash on a EOS hotshoe. Make sure you know what voltage it can handle other models of EOS cameras only allow for 6v the vivitar flash is ~12v this would fry say a 10d or a 300d. I take no responsibility if you use a non digital supported flash on your camera.

I am a new user to digital SLR’s and I’ve had my Canon 350D for about a year. I got a new 75-300mm for Christmas. The lens is a very small and light weight long focal length lens. For this focal rage this lens is very inexpensive. You can get a much higher quality professional 70-200 L series lens for about 1k more. However how many amateur photographers would need such a lens? Now if you are the paparazzi needing to get that distant photo of celebrities on the beach maybe you want the expensive lens. However if you are the average joe like me you want a decent priced lens.

Build: The build quality of the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 is ok. It is light which is a benefit. You will not find a smooth zoom and focus with this lens though. I also would not recommend any abusing this lens because I feel it would have the same fate as my cheaper 50m f1.8 lens.

Image quality: The image quality of this lens is OK… I have noticed some softening of the image at long focal lengths. The sharpness decreases the longer the lens is zoomed out. See the two images below. One is shot at 75 and the other at 300. Both are of the same subject. See the softening of the subjects at 300mm? I would not recommend using this lens in low light conditions. This is a slow lens so I would recommend a tripod and a flash if you are going to use it in low light conditions. I would even recommend a remote to use so you don’t move the camera when you depress the shutter. I would use this lens for brighter out door conditions. The lense suffers from CA (Chromatic Aberration) this degrades the image quality, but hey you get what you pay for. It still is a good entry level telephoto.

75mm:

300mm:

Conclusions: If you are on a budget and do not need a top of the line telephoto lens. Just one for every day photos this one is for you. If you want award winning crisp long focal length photos this lens is not for you.