Lenses, Lenses .... Help!!

[TammyG]

I have a 2 dilemma's that I need serious help with!! The first one is trying to decide whether to buy the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM or the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 IS L USM . The one thats faster or the one with IS???? At the moment I cant afford to get the 2.8IS its just too expensive.

My second dilemma is this: do I buy a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM fixed lense??

Which of these would be the best 2 for portrait/wedding photography?? Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[RichardTaylor]

Re the 70-200 see this thread.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 IS L USM vs Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM


I would not want to be shooting a wedding with a F4 lens (I do own the 70-200 F4 L, however I do own four 1.8 or F2 primes in the range 35mm to 135mm)

Re the 24-70 F2.8 or 50 F1.2

For weddings I would want the 24-70 mainly because of its versatility.
I do not own one.

[ravncat]

Image stabilization is meanngless for motion, and 2.8 is better for available light and depth of field isolation, so for portraiture and weddings, I'd go with the 2.8 , 70-200. As for 50 1.2 vs 24-70 that is a more personal preference,

Crazy dof isolation and great low light vs Zoom flexibility , I would guess the zoom would be a more basic need for fluid situations like a wedding, but the 50 could do some nice portraiture I'll defer to the wedding experts though, I'm a landscape/ low light nikon guy.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by TammyG

I have a 2 dilemma's that I need serious help with!! The first one is trying to decide whether to buy the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM or the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 IS L USM . The one thats faster or the one with IS???? At the moment I cant afford to get the 2.8IS its just too expensive.

Unfortunately, for weddings/portraiture, you really want the f/2.8 IS.

IS is like using a monopod. It can help you with camera shake when you're using a slower shutter speed. So it's good for still subject matter (posed subjects). But it doesn't do a damn thing to help you freeze subject action, because you still need a faster shutter speed for this. And without stabilization, you should be getting 1/focal_length or faster to eliminate camera shake blur.

For a 200mm lens, that means 1/200s. Which is hard to do in available light with f/2.8.

IS becomes useful if you think that you're going to use the lens below 1/focal_length a lot. But it's not a tripod. It does have a lower bound.

My personal inclination is to take max. aperture over IS any time, but in low light for fast-moving subjects, a 200mm f/2.8 lens is still tough. I'm usually pushing iso 1600 already with my EF 135mm f/2L USM. And that's a full stop faster and a little shorter than a 200/2.8.

Have you considered just renting the 2.8 IS until you can afford one? Or looking for a used Mark I version? Now that the Mark II is out, there are probably a bunch of folks looking to upgrade, and ditching their Mark Is.

My second dilemma is this: do I buy a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM or a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM fixed lense??

Those are two really different lenses, but for weddings, I'd say the 24-70L is probably the more common choice. The zoom gives you framing versatility that the 50mm won't give you--and on a crop body, if you want to get any kind of context/environment into your photos, may be a little tight on a crop body like the 500D. In addition, the 50L is probably one of the most difficult lenses to learn to use--particularly if you plan on shooting with it wide open at f/1.2. It also suffers from focus shift. It's an amazing lens, but there's a reason the "holy trinity" of L portrait primes is typically given as the 35/1.4L, the 85/1.2L, and the 135/2L.

[MrJones]

after testing both the 70-200 f/4 IS and the f/2.8 version plus the 24-105 f/4 and the 24-70 f,2.8 I must say that when photographing in a dark place suck as a party or a wedding at night, the difference between the f/2.8 and the f/4 is not that big of a deal - they both suck when it goes dark and you'll need to use your flash to get it right.
that being said, of course f/2.8 is better than f/4 as it gives you the extra stop when you have light but not enough. in those cases I would go with one of the primes anyway, one that gives me f/2 or lower.
as I see it, when photographing events like weddings and such, you'll have to use your flash anyway, no way around it most of the time.