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

This telephoto zoom lens provides an angle of view equivalent to an 88-400mm used on a 35mm camera. This version is an update to the previous Canon 55-250mm IS II lens, adding Canon’s new stepping motor technology, which promises smoother, quieter autofocus performance, which is especially suited to recording video.

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

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.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 f/4-5.6 IS STM Performance

At maximum aperture and 55mm sharpness is already outstanding in the centre of the frame, with the clarity towards the edges of the frame being not too far behind. Maximum performance is realised at f/5.6 for this focal length. Here sharpness is outstanding across the frame.

With the lens zoomed to 135mm, sharpness at maximum aperture remains very high in the centre of the frame and good sharpness towards the edges. Peak sharpness across the frame is achieved at f/8 for this focal length. At this aperture, performance in the centre is still outstanding and sharpness towards the edges improves to very good levels.

Impressively, sharpness holds up very well at 250mm also. At maximum aperture, sharpness in the centre of the frame is still outstanding and good towards the edges of the frame. Peak performance is achieved between f/8 and f/11 for this focal length.

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