The EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS II provides for a reasonable rate a large zoom range of small and lightweight design. It is a popular lens and is often used for animals, sports, portraits and other shots. The excellent image stabilizer offers stops profit of 4 f-stops but the slow autofocus of EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS II difficulty considerably, to follow a fast-moving subject. The micro motor used for the autofocus also allows no manual intervention in the auto focus function when not previously switched to MF. The aperture range of the EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS II is mediocre and makes recordings for sunrise or sunset without a tripod difficult - but that's only to be expected in this price range.
The sharpness of the EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS II is impressive, but fringing both sharp ("lateral chromatic aberration"), as well as in blurred image areas ("longitudinal chromatic aberration") spoil the joy of the good image quality somewhat. Less conspicuous, but there is the slight curvature of the focal plane ("curvature of field"), light (depending on focal length) barrel or pincushion distortion ("distortion") and a little edge shadows ("Vignette"). Nevertheless, the image quality of the EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS II total far higher than I would expect for a lens in this price range and probably good enough for most applications. Compared to its predecessor (the EF-S 55-250mm f / 4-5.6 IS) is the newer model is not necessarily an upgrade but not a step back. Although the picture quality of its predecessor, is a little better, but, for example, has its zoom ring game, whereas the zoom ring of the more recent model sits neatly. Both lenses are certainly a good addition to the kit lens EF-S 18-55mm f / 3.5-5.6 IS II.
A much more detailed report I published together with all the test shots, specifications and sample images on my homepage LensTests_de.
