yeah, when quoting a lens for ident its important to give the ƒ4.0-5.6 rather than just the first as there are higher grade lenses with just an ƒ4.0 or ƒ2.8 etc constant aperture this could be all on the lens and not down to you with the long distance sharpness how does the sharpness compare to the kit 18-55mm? doing the sharpness test on a serial packet at a distance may show the lens is not capable of a sharp enough image alot of people report the 55-250mm ef-s lens for a budget being the better lens as its sharper which will give better image though its shorter in max reach if you can afford it the sigma 100-400mm c is an excellent wildlife lens btw what did you take the picture of the lens with?
Now we are getting somewhere. Thanks for posting the image of the lens. This helps so much. Now we can make some progress and make some suggestions for you. A few posts ago, I linked a very quick review to this lens. Have a read of the review when you get a few spare minutes. It is not technical in any way at all. But welcome to the world of photography. Even as an adult that earns a wage, I am forever chasing nicer pictures. But one of the things that you will find is that with lenses, they can cost from a handful to tens of thousands of dollars. The results that you get will be better with a more expensive lens. No way am I suggesting that you get someone to spend that much money. I sure can't afford to do that. But what you are finding with your images is that they are soft. This is because the lens that you are using is not the finest one that Canon have made. Small, light, easy on the pocket, yes. The only things that I can suggest you try, is to try a different aperture at the 300mm. Try say f8 or f11. I don't know if it will make that much difference, but it is worth a try. Or don't shoot at 300mm. See what happens and see if your images are any better if you only go to say 250mm. It is worth trying. If you are still not happy, maybe it is time for an upgrade of lens. One other thing. If you want to know what noisy images look like. Turn your ISO up to the highest number and take a few images. Have a look at these images on a monitor. Just remember to turn your ISO back down to where it was. Let us know how you get on and yell out if you need more help. Gary
if you are on a very tight budget one way to get very good sharp lenses is to look at the vintage prime lenses, these are very easy to use on modern cameras with an adapter plate, the adapter plate for a mirrored camera should be around $10 and good sharp well built vintage prime like the Takumar 55mm ƒ1.8 will be around $30 the down side to these lenses are they are fully manual with no electrics, so no AF or IS or any exit info on the plus side they are cheap, well built, they can often have amazing artful renders starting out with M42 mount vintage lenses is the best place as they are the most common
Thank you for all your help, it seems like everybody thinks it's the lens and after doing some research I agree. I got a great deal today on a used sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3, I also was looking into that sharpness test that you mentioned something I want to learn more on as it could be a useful tool to me. Thanks for your help again I will be posting more pictures when I get a chance to use the new lens.
