What's the best Telephoto Zoom lens for canon rebel T3??

[vasanthkumar]

Hi, i have a canon rebel t3 and i want a telephoto lens , but i don't know which lens to take between Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM and Canon EF-S IS 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II, I generally like to shoot street, abstract and nature photos and I'm not sure which lens is going to be more suitable to my needs...

[TCampbell]

This thread is over 1.5 years old.  Canon has since introduced the new version of the 55-250mm zoom with the STM (stepper motor) focusing motors.  This is the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM.

The newer STM version is about $50 more than the older non-STM but it's quite an upgrade and well-wroth the $50.  The optics are better (noticeably), the front-element no longer rotates when you focus (the older version did and this would be challenging if you tried to use a circular polarizer... or other filter types where orientation of the filter is importnat.)  Lastly, the STM motors are noticeably faster ... and very quiet (nice if you plan to shoot video using the internal mic and don't want it to pick up the focus motor noise.)

Even the non-STM version of the lens would be better than the 75-300mm.  

Bryan Carnathan over at the-digital-picture.com does reviews of (mostly) Canon gear and has a pretty good write-up on the details of the lens:  http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-S-55-250mm-f-4-5.6-IS-STM-Lens.aspx