New at photgraphy- would like to buy a good multi-use lens

[jaysonsimmons]

Hello... I am very new to this. I just bought a Canon Rebel XT on ebay. The stock lens is a 18-55mm lens. My camera also came with a 55mm lens. I would like to find a good multi-use lens... Any suggestions on what to look for?

Thanks for the input!

[dlambert]

There are a couple schools of thought with respect to buying lenses.

#1 - Buy great lenses and keep them forever. You'll go through any number of camera bodies over the years, but if you pick your lenses well, you'll keep on using them as you upgrade bodies.
#2 - You don't buy lenses, you rent them. Since there's a fairly liquid market for camera equipment (esp. Canon & Nikon), it's reasonable to buy a lens with the expectation that you'll upgrade at some point and resell the old lens to recoup part of your cost (effectively like renting the lens).

When you're starting out, I favor the second approach, partly because you can get started for a reasonable amount of money, and partly because, until you shoot a bunch, you might not really know what sort of lenses you're going to want to invest in.

You've already got an 18-55 lens, which covers near-wide to normal focal lengths. If you like that range, then I'd recommend shooting with that lens for a while until you start to understand the specific things you wish that lens was better at (focal speed, focusing speed, sharpness, etc.). If you want a lens with a little more reach, the 55-250 is a great beginner telephoto zoom, and the 70-300 IS USM is a little better still. A lot of people will also find that they're shooting in a pretty narrow focal range, and the sharpness and speed of a good prime lens or two is best for them.

There are a whole host of good lenses that we could start throwing out, but you'll get lots better recommendations once you know why you want to upgrade the 18-55. Hopefully, that makes some sense.

[jdepould]

I'd strongly recommend not buying anything else until you're more comfortable with the camera. After a few months, you'll have a much better idea of what your needs are.

[inkista]

This is a good basic guide to lens features:

How to Choose the Best Digital SLR Lens

And pretty much what was said above: don't think about buying another lens until you've got a good idea of which lens you want to go for. Right now, you probably just need to do some homework, and get used to the gear you have, before something will irritate you enough to spend some money on gear to fix the irritation.

[macgart]

I was looking to upgrade my kit lens as well. I actually bought and returned a Tamron 17-55 f2.8 (it was not as sharp as my kit lens). I started doing more web research and found that based on reviews from a couple of different sites (links below) the Canon 18-55IS kit lens actually performs quite well. In order to find anything that tested better I was looking at spending around $900. As a hobbyist, that's a bit too steep for me. I read a ton of reviews on consumer sites of people who were very happy with their "upgrade" purchase. I know the kit lenses get a bad rap for being cheap, and they are; but they actually perform quite well. I'd provide some examples, but I'm not very good yet so I don't want to use my images as examples.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS - Review / Test Report

Canon Lens: Zooms - Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (Tested) - SLRgear.com!

Canon Lens: Zooms - Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS (Tested) - SLRgear.com!

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/41...5250_456is_50d

I don't do photography for a living so I really don't need the higher quality of the L lenses. Although, I will probably buy a 17-40 L at some point; if my skill warrant it.

I check my exif data periodically to see what focal ranges I use most frequently. I currently favor shorter focal lengths. I have a 50mm f1.8 that performs quite well also, but with the crop factor it is not all that useful to me.

Good luck and I hope the links are useful.