Hi!

I know some of you use Canon Digital SLR's, but what lenses? I've got the bog standard kit lens (which to be honest, is about the worst lens for the camera)

I need a good zoom lens, with decent reach. Something like a 70-300.

Anyone ever used any of the long range zoom lenses? I would get something like a Canon 70-200L F4, but I'm not loaded at the moment so we'll put that one aside. Any suggestions?

http://www.kenrockwell.com

You'll find LOTS of (good) lens reviews there.

Rockwell's kind of a dumbass in a lot of ways, though.

dpreview.com

ive got a sigma 70-300mm lens, check out www.flickr.com/photos/v4forlife for some pics. an ok lens, but if you can push to the canon 100-400 L series lens, get it. about a grand, but so worth it.

Canon 70-300 IS USM ( http://www.dpreview.com/news/0508/Canon/70-300-front.jpg ) Is a good lens for it's money. Image Stabilizer is a great thing. But the minus is, that at 300mm the picture gets quite soft. On the other hand, for it's money and at 200mm the picture is just great.

I'd personally go for 70-200L F4.0 USM, because it's not very expensive but it's still an L. Tho it lacks IS.

Those cheap sigmas are quite a good bang for the buck too. But i don't have any experience with those.

When you're buying a 70-300, you should probably buy some kind of replacement for the KIT too later on.


I at the moment, have a 400D with KIT lens too. Got to try 17-40L with it and ooohhh.... i just want it bad.:P

Quote from v4forlife :

ive got a sigma 70-300mm lens, check out www.flickr.com/photos/v4forlife for some pics. an ok lens, but if you can push to the canon 100-400 L series lens, get it. about a grand, but so worth it.

I've been looking at the Sigma, very close to going and buying one tomorow, the Sigma 70-300 DG APO Macro is only £150 at my local shop. I've seen some brilliant stuff with it too. I'll let you guys know what happens.

I'm getting a Nikon D40 and it comes with a lense, it's 18-55mm, anyone know if that good for range and starting out??

Quote from TypeRCivic :

I'm getting a Nikon D40 and it comes with a lense, it's 18-55mm, anyone know if that good for range and starting out??

Its a pretty nice camera, the 18-55 is a decent starter lens. Although you'll quickly find yourself needing more zoom. The wide angle is very good, probably a lot wider than any point+shoot you've ever used, I've used my 350D for a few months now and only yesterday I actually bought a new lens. So you can keep the kit lens for a long time.

Quote from TypeRCivic :

I'm getting a Nikon D40 and it comes with a lense, it's 18-55mm, anyone know if that good for range and starting out??

It's just a standard typical kit lens, nothing great but fine for getting started. I hear it's better than the Canon kit lens, which some people regard as junk. But the most important thing is the photographer, not the equipment.

However if you're wondering what kind of range it has then I'm guessing you don't understand what 18-55mm means, so I'd query whether a DSLR is right for you at all.

70-300 Canon ISM here, bloody good for £140.

Quote from danowat :

70-300 Canon ISM here, bloody good for £140.

Surely you mean USM?

I got the Sigma 70-300 DG APO yesterday, good lens but the focusing is real slow. Its also freakin' huge!

Only cost £158, considering it also comes with a lens hood and a case, which the Canon lenses below their "luxury" range don't.

So for the kit I got, I probably payed around the same as you payed for your lens Dan.

yeah, thats the one, USM (Unstoppable Sex Machine)

I`ve also got the Sigma 70-300. For the money its not bad (dont think you can get anything better), but sometimes its really annoying to use. It is quite soft below f8 and also over 200mm, so even if it is sunny, you may find yourself using ISO 200 or even 400....I think my next lens will be prime 200mm/f2.8 L ... - tried it once (thanks to Shittie ) in the finnish forests and I really liked it - because of the low f number, you could get exposure time of 1/500 @ ISO 100, while with my sigma i was at ISO 400

i`ve got some pics with the sigma here

I've got the Sigma 70-300 DG APO too. It's a cracking lens, simply unbeatable for the price imo. I haven't noticed much in the way of softness when wide open, my only complaints are the speed of focussing, and how much it can hunt for focus in low light. But then you look at the cost of the big white 'L' or 'G' telezooms, and you forgive it.

test @ 300mm http://don.vn.cz/temp/repo/sigmatest.jpg

Quote from STROBE :

It's just a standard typical kit lens, nothing great but fine for getting started. I hear it's better than the Canon kit lens, which some people regard as junk. But the most important thing is the photographer, not the equipment.

However if you're wondering what kind of range it has then I'm guessing you don't understand what 18-55mm means, so I'd query whether a DSLR is right for you at all.

Well I'm guessing it mean mm and I've love photography as long as I can remember and it's something I want to get into...I have to start somewhere and point and shoot cameras are not for me....So I think I'll learn real quick what everything means the photography world.....

If it was a full frame camera I'd tell you to dig around for some old slide holders and then hold one up at 18 to 55mm (and then a bunch of other distances) from your eye and look at the angle that is framed by it. You'd see that at 18mm (don't go poking your eye out with a ruler btw) you can see a pretty wide angle and at 55mm you frame this nice comfortable amount. Most non-zoom point and shoots have a focal length of about 50mm since it's really similar to what you normally see.

The D40 (and most (all?) low to mid-end dslrs) use APS-C format sensors which are smaller than your normal 35mm frame. To be able to use the above technique for these you need to either multiply the focal lengths by around 1.6 or cut out a piece of card with similar dimensions to the sensor (for the d40 the sensor is 23.7 × 15.6 mm). So that 18-55mm is effectively a 25-90mm or so lens. It's pretty versatile.

You can see that for taking pictures of racing or wildlife you'll be needing a much longer focal length, say 300mm and up. Landscapes and scenery tend to benefit wide angles, 18 will probably suffice. Portraiture has sweetspots at kinda wide (~28mm) and kinda long (~90-125mm). Macro photography (really close up) is typically done with lenses at around 100mm with special close focussing capabilities. Note that these are by no means rules and you can use any lens for anything you can get it to do.

There are a bunch of great sites that I've forgotten since I started to learn, but none of them were really more than a google away.

OP: the cheaper Canon 70-300 always felt kinda flimsy to me. Though maybe it's because I've only got this old solid aluminium topcon zoom lens and the Canon 60mm f2.8 macro to compare it to (neither of which I reckon I could take in a fight). Performance-wise I'm not really sure, since getting the macro lens it's barely left my camera (and since my battery died and I can't be bothered forking out for a new one it's all been getting dusty in the drawer).

I don't get people that say the sharpness isn't too good above 200mm.

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs2 ... oming_by_JackMcIntyre.jpg

and

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs2 ... _Goat_by_JackMcIntyre.jpg

Both taken at 300mm, F5.6.

the deer pic is @ 149mm and the goat pic doesnt have exif.

Quote from Don :

the deer pic is @ 149mm and the goat pic doesnt have exif.

Oh is it? Sorry. The Goat picture was at 300mm definatly, because those blocks of wood were far away.

Zoom lenses are shit. They're overpriced and low quality.

Get a nice normal lense. I'm not sure what diameter a normal lense would be for your particular camera, but trust me, it'll be your best friend.

Btw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_lens

That's not going to do you much good if you want to shoot things that are far away. If you meant prime lenses (ie, fixed focal length) then yeah, usually they are cheaper and a bit sharper too.

Quote from sinkoman :

Zoom lenses are shit. They're overpriced and low quality.

Get a nice normal lense. I'm not sure what diameter a normal lense would be for your particular camera, but trust me, it'll be your best friend.

Btw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_lens

The 70mm end of my Sigma is very similar to what my eye sees, If I hold the camera viewfinder above my eye, then drop it quickly there's not much change. Apart from the obvious cropping of the camera.

Quote from McTaggart :

That's not going to do you much good if you want to shoot things that are far away. If you meant prime lenses (ie, fixed focal length) then yeah, usually they are cheaper and a bit sharper too.

Exactly what I meant.

You're better off going with a tight prime for your long shots, a normal for everything else, and just taking them both with you every time you're shooting.

On my F3 it takes 5 seconds to switch lenses, dunno how long it'd take on a digital.

I don't know about Cannons, but I know all the old Nikkor analogue lenses will fit the new DSLRs just fine.

Quote from mcintyrej :

The 70mm end of my Sigma is very similar to what my eye sees, If I hold the camera viewfinder above my eye, then drop it quickly there's not much change. Apart from the obvious cropping of the camera.

You're not paying attention hard enough. That cropping is precisely what makes it "not" normal enough. If your lense is cropping anything to a noticeable level, then it's compressing the shot WAY too much. Fat chicks will look skinny, and far things will look close.

It's the reason that they use large lenses at weddings, to make the bride and groom look slimmer than they actually are.

If you're looking for some REAL fun, get a wide lense. Not so wide that it's fisheyeing noticeably though. My 28mm was the absolute most fun to use out of all my lenses.