Advice on buying a lens

[Madeleine]

Hi there. Am new to this site.
I got my Canon 50d 2 months ago. I didn't want to buy it with a kit lens so I bought the body only and a 50mm f/1.8 lens to get me started. But now I'm researching a new lens because I'm losing my patience with the 50mm.
Basically I have a budget of about $400 dollors. I've been looking at the Sigma 18-200mm lens.
But I was wondering would it be wiser to get one lens like the 18-200 or go for 2 cheaper lenses like an 18-55 and 50-200.
I hope this is making sense!! I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions on which lenses would be good for me and my budget!!

[inkista]

My druthers would be the two-lens kit of the 18-55 and the 55-250 IS. But I shoot with primes all the time and change lenses at the blink of an eye, and I shoot long with telephotos all the time.

To me, the 18-55/55-250 combo is going to give you more reach and as good or better image quality at the same price, but the 18-200 is going to give you a better travel alternative if you need to go light with a single lens, and you don't like to change lenses. All three lenses are going to be slow on the maximum aperture, which is why you want to hang onto your 50/1.8 II.

But. What is it about the 50/1.8 II that's driving you crazy? And why did you think it was going to be a good alternative to having a kit zoom? Or was it just that cost was a factor?

And. I actually highly recommend getting one lens at a time. Each lens has individual quirks that take a while to master. Getting two lenses at the same time might complicate the learning process, particularly if you mistake technique errors for faults in the glass, and start chasing lenses, when all you really need to learn is how to hold the camera, the 1/focal_length rule, how to halfpress and recompose with a single autofocus point, or to stop down from wide open.

I really hate to say this (but I will anyway in case someone's thinking of getting a 50D or 7D as their first dSLR), you might have been better off going for a lower-tiered body like the T1i or T2i, and having more money for lenses. Camera bodies stay current in the lineup for 1-3 years, and most folks upgrade a body every three to five years, like computer hardware. Lenses can last you decades, and they don't depreciate nearly as fast.

[Madeleine]

I'm not exactly new to photography. I know how to hold my camera and I've done courses in photography. I know the basics but I'm trying to get out there and practice.
I spent a lot of time researching which camera to get. I know that I would have had more money for lenses if I had gotten a cheaper model but I wanted the 50d and I have no regrets on buying it.

I bought the 50mm because I had heard a lot of great reviews on it and it was a good price. I love the lens but the reason it bothers me is that I become frustrated with the fact I am limited with being unable to zoom. I'm not buying a new lens to replace it.

I would be happy to buy one lens at a time but I live in Ireland and I am buying the lens/lenses for the US and I don't want to have to go through shipping and tax twice.

[autofocus]

Madeleine. I think an important thing to ask is what type of photography do you like, or want to do? If you want to do mostly portraiture, you won't need a long telephoto, and maybe a medium zoom would be your best option...say something in the 18 -70 range. If landscapes are your thing, maybe a wider lens should be considered...say a short zoom starting at ~10 or 12mm. If wildlife is your preference, then go with a longer zoom at upwards to 200 -300mm. The two things that I think are most important are: do your research before you buy, make sure it's a well rated lens..and get the best lens you can afford to buy even if it costs you a little more than your budget.

Vince

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Madeleine

I'm not exactly new to photography. I know how to hold my camera and I've done courses in photography. I know the basics but I'm trying to get out there and practice.
I spent a lot of time researching which camera to get. I know that I would have had more money for lenses if I had gotten a cheaper model but I wanted the 50d and I have no regrets on buying it.

Ah. Sorry for the assumptions--we get a lot of newbies through here. I was also probably projecting some of my own disgruntlement in having to "settle" for a 50D--while I enjoy mine, it's not my dream camera.

I bought the 50mm because I had heard a lot of great reviews on it and it was a good price. I love the lens but the reason it bothers me is that I become frustrated with the fact I am limited with being unable to zoom. I'm not buying a new lens to replace it.

No, I got that you were unhappy because it doesn't zoom but is it zooming IN or zooming OUT what you're most unhappy about not having? Is the lens too short or too long most of the time? That will give you the prioritization you'll want about the 18-55 or the 55-250IS, or possibly just getting a single good walkaround or telephoto with your budget, without "wasting" money on a low cost "training wheels" lens, like the 18-55/55-250/50 1.8 II.

If you want a walkaround lens for available light/portraits/weddings, then something like the $450 Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 might be a better choice than the twin kit. But it won't get you much more reach than the 50. The $336 EF-S 18-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS might give you the reach you want, but its max. aperture is too slow to do available light with moving subjects, and the image quality, while better than the twin kit, won't be outstanding, like the slightly overpriced EF-S 15-85 IS USM. A 70-300 APO OS might also be a better choice than the 55-250 IS, but it still won't be good indoors without a flash.

I agree that knowing what subject matter you like to shoot the most would help with lens recommendations, although within your budget limitation, there's not a whole lot of choices, and most of them aren't going to give you crazy-good image quality or available light AND zoom capabilities together.

[Madeleine]

Originally Posted by inkista

No, I got that you were unhappy because it doesn't zoom but is it zooming IN or zooming OUT what you're most unhappy about not having?

Mainly zooming in. Not being able to get less into my frame. When taking shots of people I want to be able to take pictures from far away because a lot of the stuff I would do of people would be candid, whereas with the 50mm you have to get pretty close to them.

Another thing that bothers me is DOF. As I said I like the 50mm but I can rarely get more then one person in focus.

The main stuff I shoot would be landscape and people. So I guess from what you're saying I should be looking for a lens with a greater focal length so I can do both.


I wonder if you have any opinions on these 2 lenses...

Canon 28-135 or Sigma 18-200. They are the 2 that I would would choose between if I decided to go with a general purpose lens.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Madeleine

Mainly zooming in. Not being able to get less into my frame. When taking shots of people I want to be able to take pictures from far away because a lot of the stuff I would do of people would be candid, whereas with the 50mm you have to get pretty close to them.

I get this thinking, but for some folks, it can be a voyeuristic or paparazzi-like thing to use a telephoto to get "candids" of people while they're not looking. It's actually something that can get you into trouble. Most of the really successful street photographers use wide-to-normal lenses and work close, and are extraordinarily skilled at meeting/handling people. Telephoto zooms are big lenses. They tend to get you noticed. And possibly pointed out to the cops, particularly if you're taking pictures of children.

But that said, maybe you only need to get a telephoto zoom, rather than a walkaround and a telephoto.

Another thing that bothers me is DOF. As I said I like the 50mm but I can rarely get more then one person in focus.

This may actually be a good reason to stick with a walkaround and learn to work closer. The longer a lens is, the shallower the DoF will become for the same aperture setting. I will say that with the 50mm, all you have to do to avoid this, is to stop the lens down a bit to get more DoF. The 50/1.8 II is sharpest around f/4-f/5.6, anyway.

The main stuff I shoot would be landscape and people. So I guess from what you're saying I should be looking for a lens with a greater focal length so I can do both.

Actually those two subjects are covered by most shooters with wide-to-normal lenses (i.e., 50mm and below; or 35mm and below, depending on who you talk to). I, however, am like you, and prefer using longer focal lengths and hanging back. I'm often panostitching for landscapes with longer lenses, or using telephotos for compression. And I like telephotos and their shallow depth of field for portraits, because distractions in the background are blurred away.

I wonder if you have any opinions on these 2 lenses...

Canon 28-135 or Sigma 18-200. They are the 2 that I would would choose between if I decided to go with a general purpose lens.

The 28-135 was designed with film in mind. On a crop body, the "general wisdom" is that 28mm isn't particularly wide on a crop body. I would agree with that statement. My walkaround lens is the 24-105, and I sometimes don't find 24mm to be wide enough. But that's much rarer than the times I find 105 to be "too" long. I think you could be happy with the 28-135, but that you might later need to supplement it with a wider lens, say, the EF-S 10-22. The crop body "equivalent" of the 28-135 IS USM was the EF-S 17-85 IS USM, which has since been replaced by the EF-S 15-85 IS USM.

The new EF-S 18-135 IS I mentioned above might actually be a better fit for the 50D than the older EF 28-135 IS USM.

The Sigma 18-200 is good for what it does, but none of the superzoom lenses are much higher quality than an 18-55 kit lens, and sometimes less. To cover the large zoom range, there are a lot of weird compromises in the lens, and things like mustache distortion (which is when a lens exhibits both barrel and pincushion distortion at the same time and is much more difficult to correct for in post) are more common in the superzooms--they also tend to exhibit softness at the range extremes, and chromatic aberration. They're usually ok lenses, but you are sacrificing some image quality for the convenience of the zoom range, and they're never particularly fast lenses.

That said, I've never seen or shot with any of these lenses we're talking about, but just going by the reviews I've read, so whether or not you want to rely on my opinion is a whole 'nother matter.

Two review sites that I tend to go to for information on Canon-mount lenses would be fredmiranda.com, and the-digital-picture.com.

[BCampbell]

The 5DMkII is a high end camera. Honestly, none of the lenses you're talking about are really worth mounting to it. When you have a quality body, you really want quality lenses.

At a $400 budget, I would say either replace the 50mm 1.8 with the 50mm 1.4, or save your money a bit. At the minimum, look into the 17-40mm f/4L. That and the 70-200 f/4L are the only lenses under $1000 I'd consider for this camera.

In any case, the 18-55 and 55-250 are EF-S lenses and are unusable on your camera. Start elsewhere.

[RichardTaylor]

The 5DMkII?????

The lenses are for a 50D

+1 inkista

[BCampbell]

Hah, sorry, disregard that, somehow I parsed "50D 2" as "5D 2".