Which Lens?

[lancashirescott]

Hi All,

I get the news letter but I haven't been on the forums until now and sorry my first post is for advice!

I am relatively new to DSLR's and always had point and shoots in the past which I always carried with me.

I bought the Canon T2i/550D (kit lens) and have been using it when ever I go out and love it, but I am looking to upgrade and get a new lens, so my question is what would be a good all round lens that I could get on say a budget of $800 I could maybe push to $1000 but I would have to wait a little longer for that.

I do quite a lot of Hiking so my shots are mainly Landscape but I also take shots of Wildflowers, I have recently started Mountain Scrambling which gets you onto summit ridges so Panoramic shots would be good too. That I would say at the moment is what I will be doing most of the time.

Any help and advice is very much appreciated,

Scott

[wal]

with that budget i'd invest on a EF 24-105mm f4L IS .. an excellent all round lens

[tameboy]

I have a Canon 550D too and was thinking about upgrading my kit lens.

Would this suggestion (EF 24-105mm f4L IS) give enough wide angle options for use as suggested in the first post? Given that the 550D effectively increases the focal length by 1.6, this suggestion would leave you with 38.4 as your shortest focal length - rather than the 28.8 on the kit lens (18 x 1.6).

I am a beginner with DSLR too, so you might be able to correct me, but I would be worried that the suggested lens might not give a wide enough via for landscape shots?

[Saralonde]

You could try the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. It is an EF-S lens, only good on crop bodies, but it is remarkably sharp and relatively wide for landscapes. It pushes at your $1000 top dollar amount though.

[inkista]

Ok, this is just my opinion, but I think it might be a little too soon for you to start thinking about buying a new lens, if you're still undecided on what KIND of lens you want to get.

For landscapes and panoramas, the 18-55 kit lens is plenty good, and you may just need to learn how to stop it down to f/8 for sharpness and working on handholding technique, or investing in post-processing software or a tripod, rather than blowing $1000 on a lens. I took this with the MkII, older, softer, non-IS version of the 18-55:


Canon 50D. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II, @18mm. iso 200, f/8, 1/160s. handheld.

You may also want to concentrate more on getting a macro lens for the flowers.

[lancashirescott]

Thanks for the replies,

Inkista, I have a tripod and software (Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3) with the latter I am just getting used to using slowly, tripod is ok with me on hikes but scrambles not really.

I should add that I really was looking for one lens as I dont want to be changing lenses on the mountain with dust from scree, added weight and time etc so I was looking for something that I can use to cover all aspects of what I want to do.

I know I should wait and get used to the camera more but I will probably end up buying something else, so whilst I have the opportunity to upgrade now I thought I would get some ideas, I am in no immediate rush by the way.

I still haven't had time to really look into other makes like Tamron and Sigma but I was looking at this Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM any thoughts?

Thanks for the help and ideas so far

[inkista]

Ok, so what you really want is something relatively light and compact with a good wide-to-normal focal length, and preferably IS since you don't want to haul the tripod with you? And if it has a good minimum focus distance so you can do closeup of flowers, that would be good, but not required, for a budget of $800 or less.

Then, I think you found the one: the EF-S 15-85 IS USM is the successor to the 17-85 IS USM, and it's been getting all around good reviews. It's a little expensive for what it is, but not overly so, and as long as you don't need a large max. aperture and fast shutter speeds, you'll be ok. If you wanted more reach, and were willing to sacrifice some image quality for it, there's also the EF-S 18-135 IS, but since wide angle is probably more of a priority, the 15-85 is probably going to be a better fit. If you needed the lens to do lower light and/or faster shutter speeds, then the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM is probably the lens to look at (or a cheaper Sigma/Tamron equivalent).

The MFD of the 15-85 is about a foot or so. If that's good enough for your flower shots, then I think you've picked the lens you want. Alternatively, hauling along your P&S for macro shooting might be worthwhile, if you don't want to get a separate macro lens just yet.

[lancashirescott]

Thanks inkista for the info and help its very much appreciated, I think I'm sold now on the 15-85.