lens advice for someone who learnt on manual focus glass

[nathanbarlow]

hi guys,

wanted to get some advice on buy a new lens. I have several older manual primes, which I love, but they arent the best for travelling as i keep swapping every 5 seconds haha.

I have a
EOS nifty fifty f1.8
EOS 28-80 f.5.6 - 6.something (kitlens)

18-28mm f4 manual wideangle
180mm f2.8 manual telephoto
200mm f3.5 which i often couple with a 1.85x telephoto.

Having learnt on primes and loving the fast glass, I'm really loathe to buy a budget cheap lens and give up the fixed fast apertures and amazing image quality, but dont have cash to burn on lenses haha

If budget wasnt an issue, I'd probably get the 24-105 f/4 Canon lens as that lens seems like it would replace my kit lens, has a good zoom range, and seems to fit well with my current shooting style and current gear. However, the cheaper version has a really annoying aperture range, which is my main reason for not using my kitlens much (I really only whip it out when i need auto focus combined with a 'does most things' zoom range, otherwise i just go manual)

On the other hand I really struggle with the manual wideangle lens as focusing a wideangle manually is really tricky (combination of view angle, aperture and the fact that i dont have a split prism viewfinder which manual lenses were designed for)



My question is what would people recommend for either a good wideangle zoom lens or a good mid-size telephoto zoom.

[OsmosisStudios]

Can a D60 handle EF-S? If so, the 15-85 f/3.5-5.6 IS would be a great option.

[nathanbarlow]

D60 cant handle EF-S.

But my new (to me) 30D apparently can. Just bought it second hand as my d60 had the dreaded error99 a month before going overseas. Suspect its the shutter, and cant find anyone in NZ who can fix it even if i get a shutter unit (which i can online). Might do some camera surgery when i get back from my travels.

will have a look at that 15-85 EF-S .... are there any 'drawbacks' to EF-S compared to EF? I have only ever used EF lenses.

[RichardTaylor]

Only real drawback is that they cannot be used on 1 or 5 series cameras.
The other thing is except for the Canon EF-S 17-55 they tend to be slower than some of the full frame lenses and do not have the mechanical build quality (and in some cases the IQ) of the full frame lenses (especially the L series).