Canon EOS Rebel G and Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera

ordinaryday

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So I found a Canon EOS Rebel G that my parents bought a couple years ago, and it has a Canon Zoom Lens EF 35-80mm 1:4-5.6 III on it.

Will this lense fit on the Rebel XT?

Is it compatible, since the EOS is film and the XT is digital?

Complete beginner here, so any techinical responses please keep simple.
 
all EOS cameras have the same lens mount and electronics. so yes, it'll fit. I posted a question on here asking what it's quality would be compared to the 85-55 EF-S kit lens on the D rebels. I still want to know, cause I'm sure a film rebel's kit lens is cheap, and it has a longer maximum focal length.
If it has good optical quality, then it'd be a good addition.
 
Thanks for the quick reply! Sorry to say you completely lost me after the first sentence of your post, when I say complete beginner, I truly mean it, heh.
 
Focal length, it's what we see as magnification of the image through the lens (its much more than that, but this is a lay mans explanation). smaller numbers produce wider angles whereas higher numbers produce more telephoto shots, or more magnified pictures - tele from the greek meaning "far off".

18mm-55mm kit lenses are, well kit lenses meaning they come with the kit when you buy the camera. two focal lengths indicate a zoom lens, ranging from 18mm (wide angle) to 55mm (~normal).

Now, on most digital cameras the sensors are smaller than 35mm film, so it produces a crop factor of 1.5 (1.6 for canon consumer cameras). So, you take 18mm x 1.6 = ~29mm in 35mm. If you are used to shooting film this is very important, because your 28mm wide angle lens is suddenly not so wide angle on a digital body. If you arent used to film, dont worry about it.

What DSLR noob was wondering is how the quality of the lens you mentioned compares to the quality of the digital kit lens, because he feels the 35-80mm lens that is on the Rebel G would be cheap and cover a decent zoom range.

I take it you do not understand exposure then, such as aperture, shutter speed, and ISO and how they are related then?

If you dont, let me continue rambling. Photos are taken by light hitting a recording medium, be it film or a digital sensor. There are 3 elements here effecting how exposed an image is: The duration that the light hits the medium (shutter speed), the intensity or amount of the light (aperture), and the sensitivity of the medium to light (ISO). This means that there are many ways to get the same exposure and you will learn when to compromise each element.

For example, you can get a well exposed picture of a tree on a cloudy day by setting the aperture (opening of the camera, uses blades much like the diaphram in the eye) to f/5.6. set your shutter speed to 1/250 of a second and use ISO 100 (film or digital setting). You can also get this same exposure by using a tiny aperture of f/32 and keeping the shutter open for 1/8th of a second. on a windy day this may add a blur to the photo much like the picture on the homepage of this website. The idea here is that you need a certain amount of light, f/32 lets very little light in so you have to leave the shutter open longer to get the same amount as you would for f/5.6 at 1/250 sec.

I've heard it discribed as filling a cup with water, and the faucet is the camera settings. You can fill the cup at a trickle but it will take longer, or you can turn it on all the way and fill the cup very quickly. Of course there is everything in between as well. Oh and sensitivity would be like a smaller cup. ISO 200 would "fill up" twice as fast as ISO 100, so you could use a faster shutter speed like 1/500 at f/5.6 because 1/500 is twice as fast as 1/250. Still with me?

I'll let that sink in. Ask if you have ANY questions.


EDIT: I need to stop doing these late night long winded posts.
 
Wow! Thanks! I took photography, but basically it was the teacher telling us to go outside and shoot with some crappy point and shoots provided. I learned more from your post then the whole semester's worth of class.

Anyway you state "the 35-80mm lens that is on the Rebel G would be cheap and cover a decent zoom range." Is that bad? Or I'm just confused since you say it's "cheap" them say "decent" zoom range.

I was considering purchasing the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens. Do you know if it performs better than the the 35-80mm lens?
 
Cheap as in less money. not cheap as in crappy, but most kit lenses are crappy so if you still don't understand what my original question was (not expecting you to answer but i want you to know what I was asking for your sake).

I know the lens won't cost a lot of money, but is it good enough, to consider buying?

The specs of a lens look good on paper. The word decent was used to describe the range because I already have 18-55 and it is a 30-80, meaning it would be decent for me to switch between the 2 and have 18-80 amnug them.
Only reason one still has to ask after seeing the specs on paper is that no matter how good a lens seems in terms of numbers and such, you really need personal experience to answer how "good" a lens is. Canon makes a 70-300 lens. to a noob that sounds great. "I can zoom all the way to 300!"
But it is actually quite a crappy lens that has soft focus, and chromatic aberation (purle highlights where lines of contrast meet).

Now I have posted this all over the forum, but it'll probably help you:

DSLR Noob's lens buying guide.

How a lens is named(Canon, others are similar)

Canon------------50mm------------f/1.4------------USM
^manufacturer----^focal length----^max apertrue--^feature, in this case, a USM ring focusing motor

Focal length guide(variable "L" for length):
L < 28 it is considered wide and would be good for landscaping, somehting around 14 to 21 would be ideal. It is also good for taking pictures in cramped spaces. One can also emphasize the size of a building.

30> L < 80 Is considered a midrange lens. Good for portraits, photos of cars, etc.

L < 80 Is a telephoto, good for taking pictures from a distance. Lengths above 250 are great for nature photography of animals that'd be scared when you approach closely. think a telescope for your camera.

Aperture Guide usages and benefits.
A low aperture number or a high aperture (the lower the number the higher the aperture, don't ask). A high aperture (like 1.8) means that the aperture blades in the lens can open up to a very large hole to let light pass through. Thus you can take a picture in a low light situation, without a shutter speed slow enough to make camera shake a horrible reality. The positives, being able to use faster shutter speeds, brighter viewfinder, interesting blurring of the objects not focused on (called bokeh, and is achieved with a shallow DOF [depth of field] ). Downside, fully opened lenses aren't as razor sharp as usual, shallow depth of field can be a bad thing, (i.e. let's say you focused on a bench 30 feet in front of a building, this bench has really nice aging wood and beautiful woodgrain, but the building also has a detailed antique feeling. You want to capture both. well if your aperture is wide open at 1.8, when you focus on the bench, the building turns into a blurry series of dots of light[you see them in movies in the background or foreground a lot].

Using a smaller aperture (lower MAX is still preferred in buying a lens but this is a usage tip) can be good because more is in focus. you would be able to take a picture where the bench and the building, are in moderately good focus (naked eye probably couldn't tell the difference). Downsides to this are, longer shutter speeds, possibly needing a tripod, darker viewfinder, and if too high, once again losing razor sharpness on the most focused object.

Most lenses work best (for razor sharpness) at around F/8.

Here is just a feature yo might see someday when looking at lenses.

Macro- indicates a life-size magnification. In other words, you can focus close enough to a small object, filling the frame, and it would take the picture with the object in life size proportion to your sensor. think, if you sensor is the size of a postage stamp, and you take a picture of a bug that fills the entire postage stamp, then when you uploaded the image, that poster stamp image makes a 40 inch high res Monitor sized digital image, and in theory, a 40 inch bug in full detail!


Focal length diagram of how a telephoto sees compared to a wide angle. (Variable "C" for camera, lines represent everything camera can see, not the shape of the lens) Both cameras are pointed at a red Corvette.


Telephoto, 150mm
IMG_0154.jpg

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..........{C}.............


Wide angle 28 mm
IMG_0154.jpg

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............{C}............

On the telephoto, notice the accuracy to fill the frame with a small portion of what the camera is pointed at, but at high magnification (imagine the lines at the end of the camera's sight being edges of a picture frame, the photo is the same size, just stretch or squish the image into that perspective. this camera sees from a few feet in front of the bumper to just in front of the rear tire of the car.


On the wide angle, it captures a lot of what it is pointed at, more than what your eye can pick up (eye is about a 50mm), but everything in the picture is smaller to fit. Once again picture is same size. This image captures the car and the entire parking lot

Always research a lens before buying it. Just because it has the focal length and aperture you want doesn't mean that the image quality is great. ask here before purchasing!

Aperture diagram.
This is a bad example because I rarely take photos with a large depth of field but here is aperture at 2.8
IMG_0235.jpg

See how the girls are both in focus, as is the front of the table to the rear of the table?

Well here is another photo at 1.8
IMG_0073.jpg

look at the table the can is sitting on. Notice how an inch of depth is in focus. Everything an inch behind the can is blurry everything an inch in front of the can is blurry. Making the can stand out, a desired effect in this instance. The soft background is called bokeh and is visually pleasing without its sharp lines and harsh contrast.
 
Wow! Thanks! I took photography, but basically it was the teacher telling us to go outside and shoot with some crappy point and shoots provided. I learned more from your post then the whole semester's worth of class.

Anyway you state "the 35-80mm lens that is on the Rebel G would be cheap and cover a decent zoom range." Is that bad? Or I'm just confused since you say it's "cheap" them say "decent" zoom range.

I was considering purchasing the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens. Do you know if it performs better than the the 35-80mm lens?

Glad I could help you out.

When I say the 35-80mm is cheap, I mean price wise it is not an expensive lens, just like the 18-55. By decent zoom I mean it covers a nice range, by decent I wasn't implying anything regarding quality. Whether or not the lens is quality is what DSLR noob is wondering. Kit lenses and cheap zooms usually aren't great, but when you are starting they can be good choices. We have a few threads talking about the worth of the kit lens, where some say its just a paperweight and others think it is one of the better bang for the buck lenses you can get, but you really only want to use it in bright sunlight or with a tripod so you can keep the aperture at f/8 or above (which only allows light to pass through the "sweet spot" of the lens, aka the sharpest part). I personally enjoy my kit lens because it is a cheap wide angle lens that can double as a short portrait lens.

Lenses are going to be a trade off between price, quality and versatility/comfort. price is obvious, thats the green stuff (or whatever your country uses), quality is mostly subjective, and comfort is there for zoom lenses and big range. for example, the 50mm 1.8 is only high in quality. at 100 dollars it is a very cheap lens (probably best bang for buck), it isn't very versitile because you cant zoom, so you get to use your feet. This doesnt work if you need a wide angle shot of a room unless you can walk through walls. This also prevents you from taking pictures of wildlife that scare easy. You need to decide which parts you are willing to give up. If you want fast (small apertures like f/2.8 as opposed to f/4) quality glass, be prepared to cough up some dough. Want it to zoom and quality? you're gonna spend money. You want a prime (fixed focal length) that is high quality? you probably wont have to spend as much.

Everything in photography is a trade off, so you need to decide what you feel comfortable with.
 
It should also be added that aperture isn't the only thing that effects depth of field (DOF). Focal length and camera to subject distance also effect the DOF of an image, with higher focal lengths and closer distances producing shallower (more blur) DOF.

This photo is at 300mm taken about 38 inches away with f/18 (very small aperture)

Whiterbackgroundapple.jpg



This one was my first attempt using f/8 with the other settings the same. Notice how shallow the DOF is, only a small sliver is in focus (at bottom of the stem running sideways)


Appleforweb.jpg

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i119/xfloggingkylex/Photo forums/Whiterbackgroundapple.jpg
 

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