Canon EF 75-300mm, III

The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III is an affordable telephoto zoom for Canon EOS cameras, giving you plenty of reach without the size, weight or price of Canon's larger professional telephoto lenses.

Its 75-300mm zoom range takes you from medium telephoto through to a much tighter 300mm view, making it useful for wildlife, outdoor sport, events, portraits and anything you can't simply walk closer to.

At approximately 480g, it's relatively lightweight for the amount of reach it offers. Canon originally developed this third-generation version as a compact, lightweight telephoto zoom covering 75mm through 300mm.

Because it's a Canon EF lens, it also spans two generations of EOS photography. It can be used natively on compatible Canon EOS 35mm film SLRs and Canon EF-mount digital SLRs, making it a useful option if you shoot across both formats.

Best for

• Wildlife
• Outdoor sports
• Events
• Travel
• Portraits
• Distant subjects
• Beginner telephoto photography
• Canon EOS 35mm film cameras
• Canon EF-mount DSLRs
• Photographers wanting affordable extra reach

What to expect

At 75mm, the lens works well for portraits and general telephoto shooting. Zooming out to 300mm gives you substantially more reach for distant subjects, wildlife and outdoor sport.

The trade-off is the variable f/4-5.6 maximum aperture. As you zoom towards 300mm, the maximum aperture becomes f/5.6, so good available light or a faster shutter speed becomes increasingly useful.

There is no image stabilisation, so steady technique matters at the longer end of the zoom range.

Autofocus on this specific III version uses a conventional DC motor. Don't confuse it with the visually similar EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM, which uses Canon's Micro USM autofocus motor. Canon confirms that while the optical system is shared, the autofocus drive differs between the two versions.

Developing

This lens is natively compatible with both Canon EOS 35mm film cameras and compatible Canon EF-mount digital SLRs.

When used with a film EOS body, developing depends on the film loaded into the camera. Colour negative film will commonly use C-41 processing, while black and white and slide films require their respective processes.

When used on a digital EF-mount camera, no film developing is required.