Love to have an affordable and lightweight 28-300.

[NiceShotSteve]

Am using the Tamron VC version right now, and it's pretty good. Anyone know of a Canon 28-300 replacement that is less $ and doesn't break your back?

 

[wickidwombat]

Am using the Tamron VC version right now, and it's pretty good. Anyone know of a Canon 28-300 replacement that is less $ and doesn't break your back?

what you mean $2500 and 1.7kg isn't cheap and light?

unfortunately thats the best there is from canon, the nikon 28-300 is more compact however as for quality goes
the canon L beast is in a league of its own, it was my first canon lens. no super zoom comes close to it's IQ I'm afraid

 

[Loswr]

Nothing in the Canon lineup qualifies. Canon used to make an EF 28-200mm lens, but it's discontinued and the IQ was poor. For APS-C bodies, there's the EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS which is decent when stopped down.

Personally, I think the size and weight of the 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS is a worthwhile tradeoff for good IQ coupled with the convenience of a superzoom. I have one, and while neither cheap nor light, it's similar to my other white zooms so the weight doesn't bother me, especially when carried with a Blackrapid strap.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I picked up a used 28-300mm L IS yesterday from a local Craigslist seller. It was dated in 2004, and purchased in 2006. It looks and operates like new.

I spent all morning doing a AFMA with my 5D MK III. This was just shooting the long railing on my deck, and checking longer distances. It appears that there is quite a bit of interaction of the AFMA settings for wide and Tele, so I also checked 135mm to see if it was possible to manipulate the settings to get 135mm perfect as well as 28 and 300.

At full aperture, the lens is not the sharpest I own, and not as sharp as the 35-350 I had last year. After adjusting AFMA, I tool some shots at f/8 and they were much sharper, of course. I'll try f/5.6 and 6.3 next.

I have a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 100-400mmL, but this lens just seems heavy! That could just be me.

I'll play with it for the next few weeks or months before I decide if I'll keep it or not, I like the idea of a super zoom, but I need to get consistently sharp images from it.

The spot AF on my 5D MK III is a improement, like my 7D, I can pick out a target in a tangle of brush and focus on it.

Both were with my 5D MK III 300mm ISO 125 f/8 The bird is approximately a 100% crop

 

[Marsu42]

I have a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 100-400mmL, but this lens just seems heavy! That could just be me.
I'll play with it for the next few weeks or months before I decide if I'll keep it or not, I like the idea of a super zoom, but I need to get consistently sharp images from it.

Heavy in comparison to the 70-200/2.8? Ugh. And of course "sharp" is relative - looking at your bird shot it seems ok, but certainly not as sharp as the 70-300L at the same aperture - but then again, you wouldn't expect it to be.

What would bother to me is the disturbed bokeh in the bird shot which certainly is a large difference to the 70-300L. I'm having a similar, but much milder effect on grass and the like in the background, but if you don't postprocess it away it somehow looks very unsettling and worsens the shot.