An excellent telephoto lens

I use my Rebel XTi mostly for auto racing photos and recently added the 70-300 mm USM IS to my lens collection. This is a really fantastic lens for my purpose. It tracked the fast moving cars accurately, colors are very nice, and the lens is quite sharp without the fall off in quality at 300 mm as most other zooms of similar focal length do. The image stabilization is something I don't normally use at the track for fast moving shots but in low light situations it makes a world of difference in the picture sharpness. The 58 mm filter and lens shade size is readily available and reasonably priced so adding these items won't break your budget. Build quality is very good, the finish is quite nice also. Its light weight balances nicely with the XTi body. I think this would make an excellent travel or wildlife lens for someone, and a great companion lens would be the 17-85 mm USM IS for an excellent 2 lens combo. All in all this is one of the best lenses of its type on the market today and gets my highest recommendation, especially for the price I paid, 549.00.