To be honest I bought this lens because it was on sale for $100 in my local camera shop and the longest lens I had was 85mm. My main requirement in a zoom lens was that it let me capture some reasonable wildlife and landscape shots while I was on my travels through some of the National Parks of the American Midwest and Western Canada. I knew the likelihood of it getting broken before the end of the 6 weeks of travel was fairy high (as a combination of road-trip and backpacking it wasn’t exactly gentle travel) so there was no way I was going to spend several hundred (or even thousands) of dollars on one of the high-end lenses.
The Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM Telephoto Zoom Lens (as it is called on the box) usually retails for between $250 and $300 so I figured if I could pick one up for $100 it would be worth it even if it only lasted a couple of weeks. But I didn’t exactly have high expectations which might be why I’m so happy with this lens. First off it has proved to be a hardy little bugger, I don’t have a camera bag large enough to hold extra lenses so I used a spare toiletry bag which was waterproof but offered little else in the way of protection.
