Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Lens Review

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Handling and Features

Canon EF S 55 250mm IS STM (7)

Just like the previous version of this lens, this lens is constructed from high quality plastics, including the lens mount. As it is an EF-S lens, it can only be mounted on EF-S compatible Canon cameras, like the Canon EOS 600D used for testing. The lens balances well with this camera, due to it only weighing around 375g and being relatively compact.

Canon EF S 55 250mm IS STM (11)

Autofocus is silent, swift and precise. Unlike many of Canon's USM lenses, full time manual focus override is not possible, and manual focusing is performed by the focusing motor. Manual adjustments can be made in single focus mode once the lens has locked onto a target. The manual focusing ring is quite light to operate, but well enough damped to make applying fine adjustment a pleasure. A small switch on the side of the lens allows switching between manual and autofocus quickly. Focusing is performed internally, so the 58mm filter thread doesn't rotate, making this lens ideal for use with polarising and graduated filters.

With care, sharp hand held images are possible around half the time at an impressive 1/25sec, which is roughly four stops slower than the usual rule of thumb for sharp images would allow. The image stabiliser takes just over a second to settle down properly, so it pays to pause a while to allow the system to catch up with your motion.

Canon EF S 55 250mm IS STM (6)

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