Need advice on a telephoto lens

DebraM63

I am new to this forum. I have a T2i and I'm going to be going to a photo shoot taking pictures of some wild horses in their natural environment. I just have the basic camera right now.

Any recommendations on a good starter telephoto lens for a setting such as this? I will be walking around taking pictures. I would imagine we won't be able to get too close to the horses.

The time of day will be 3-7pm, so lighting will be probably bright to starting to get into dusk.

Thanks!

PBked

Canon makes 3 good starter telephoto lenses:
a) 18-135mm + STM version
b) 18-200mm
c) 55-250mm
Allowing for the crop factor of 1.6 on your camera, these translate to:
a) 28-216mm
b) 28-320mm
c) 88-400mm
Tamron also makes the excellent 18-270mm pzd and more recently the 16-300mm.
I would say that, overall, all these lenses deliver similar performance and are great as fit one lens only. The only question is the degree of magnification you want.
However, where all these lenses fall down and many other telephoto zooms for that matter, is in their minimum and maximum apertures - typically f/3.5 - f/5.6. This means that they suffer in low light situations. They all produce good pictures in good light but performance tends to fall off as night approaches or if used indoors without flash. However, the convenience of having these tasty long zooms with a reasonably wide angle (18mm versions) in one lens is usually enough to encourage a person to use one. Lastly, all the lenses I list have IS, the benefits of which cannot be understated.
Hope this helps,
PBked

DebraM63

Thanks much for your reply! This gives me something to work with.