Back in June 2019 I wrote about my move from the 70/75-300mm long zoom lenses to my current 55-250mm stm.
Back again for a full years round up and how it performs with the Eos M series of mirrorless cameras. without a doubt my previous research on this lens prior to my switch from Canon 70D to mirrorless, was totally vindicated by this great lens. On my 70d it performed exactly as I had hoped and more!
Now bearing in mind I am primarily a Landscape and travel photographer, so long distant zoom is not something I want to use often, or indeed macro or close up work. So I didn’t want to go spending a huge amount of money on a long distance zoom. Enter the 55-250mm stm
Much more lightweight (at 375g) even more than the 18-135mm! it was a real boon on the 70d, but how ws it going to feel on the mirrorless system? Well of course its bigger than its Efm counter part the Efm 55-200mm which ways in at a paltry 260g, but actually not that much of a difference in weight (around 100g). The difference you might notice more is the 55-250mm stm has a 4-5.2 aperture where as its baby cousin has a 4.5-6.3 aperture. Hmmmm methinks that the 55-250mm stm should perform better. Again many comments on the web actually sound disappointed about the Efm 55-200mm. And many prefer the slightly bulkier Efs 55-250mm.
I am with them, on the Eos M it does dwarf the camera a teeny weeny bit more than its 18-135mm brother, but actually hardly much more actually around 10mm but for some reason feels so much lighter, well it is lol A full plastic body with an un ashamedly plastic mount! Oh the plastic mount right? (nods knowingly), well for all those that are wondering, again I have never had any problems with plastic mounts! and they seem to shave somewhere between 100-130g off the weight. Lets face it, one of the main reasons I went for the mirrorless system camera was to reduce size and or weight of camera and its combined lenses.
So Back to the Eos M, allowing for the fact that I have the added weight/length of the Efs to Efm adaptor, it is just as comfortable to hold in the same way the 18-135mm stm is . Again due to the minimal amount of grip I had been getting with the M , it is easier to carry around in the hand as a lens, with the M as the little bit on the end. Much lighter making taking long distance shots easier to keep the full focal length steady , I found little to no blurry images. This is also helped by its built in image stabilisation. This enables me to get a few stops off the aperture(very useful at full zoom).
Now the other great thing about Super zooms is you can get close up shots without having to get close up, right? Right, I have seen and captured moon shots with this lens(yes I know, you have to crop, but then again I did when I had the 70-300mm). Boats out in the Marina without getting wet! and the other bonus getting a good degree of not quite macro, but good enough for me, shots!
Images come out as crisp and sharp on the Eos M as they ever did on my 70D. Handling on the Eos M5 is again better with a better grip and slightly more shape to the camera giving a better balance size ratio. Again it feels better on the M5 with just as sharp focusing and no fall off that I can see. In fact I have got some cracking shots with this lens and will post them below with their focal lengths for illustration. No movement between lens and camera you can get all the functions of the camera the same as it were a native lens. I really cannot recommend this lens enough for the casual zoom user. Its just stunning.
Journeys From A Small Room 
I have the CANON M5, bought the 55-200 lens for it. Creates some great images.
I did have the adaptor to be able to use the other Canon lenses on, but it made the camera so heavy, defeated the whole purpose of buying the Mirrorless in the first place. I do wish Canon made a zoom to 300 for the M series, but can’t see that ever happening, all the effort now is in to the R series!
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totally agree, but it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon. Apologies for late reply have been moving home lol
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