General Purpose EOS lens

Sam6644 · Dec 21, 2009

Hey all,

I'm planning to get into the Canon game when the new round of financial aid money comes in. I'm planning to buy a 7D body and my question is what general purpose lens should I be looking at?

I've been looking around and so far I've come up with the Canon 24-70 2.8 L as my best way to go but I'm also questioning it.

It's fast, which is one of my very main priorities, but on a 1.6x crop body, 24mm is not very wide at all. Also, there's the subject of cost, at $1200-$1400 its a considerable investment (yes, I know its an investment). The 1.6x crop is nice on the long end though as that 70 becomes 112mm.

I know this to be an extremely popular all-purpose lens for pros and owning it now would be very nice but I wanted to make sure there isn't some other lens out there I'm over looking.

As it is, dropping $2000 on the body (with a CF card and warrantee) is going to be tough enough so if there is a lens that'd I'd be better off checking out I'd like to know about it.

I'm mostly interested in the range of focal lengths while still being fast. I'm a photojournalism student and I work for the news paper at school and I've come to find that stuff like f/3.5-5.6 just doesn't cut it 90% of the time. I'd like to find something nice and fast with a decent range. Even with IS or Nikon's VR, f/3.5 still doesn't give me fast enough shutter speeds to shoot sports with.

Thanks everyone!

FrankLamont · Dec 21, 2009

Get a 35mm... but a 50mm is fine anyway on an APS-C body. So, the nifty fifty is good anyway.

Mike_E · Dec 21, 2009

If you are set on a zoom then I'd look hard at one of the 17-50mm f/2.8 types first and then start in on an 80-200mm f/2.8.

And I wouldn't be shy about 3rd party lenses at this point either because newspaper print and extreme resolution (even monitors for that matter if you know how to sharpen and resize) don't necessarily go together.

Overread · Dec 21, 2009

Have you considered the 24-105mm f4 IS L ?
Its the other lens to the 24-70mm f2.8L and whilst its max aperture is smaller it has IS as well as a longer focal length covering. You might find that the longer reach is helpfull when you are more varied in teh subjects that you are working with. The 24-70mm f2.8 is certainly popular with people who end up shooting in duller (indoor) conditions without support lighting (flash) but idealy something like a 50mm f1.8 (recomended because its not too costly and yet has good image quality if poor overall build quality) would be better suited to such a job since it has an even wider max aperture.

You might also want to budget for something like a 430EX2 flash to add to your setup because if your shooting for a school a lot of your shots are going to endup indoors where you will want the support lighting of a flash. Sports (indoor) will also benefit from the use of a flash though you would idealy be wanting to look at much longer glass (and again more cost)

bigtwinky · Dec 21, 2009

The 24-105 is also what came to mind.

But really, you won't find a 16-200 f/2.8 with IS lens, so you need to know your photojournalistic shooting style along with the type of event you shoot, and get the lens that goes best with that.

If you like to be in the action up front, then a wider lens such as a 17-55 might be great. If you are shooting outdoors mainly during the day, a 24-105 might be good. Lots of sports? Then a 70-200 f/2.8 IS is key. Your logic in getting the 24-70 as a workhorse lens is sound as well.

The majority of photojournalists I see carry 2 bodies when on assignment, on one they have a 70-200 IS (f/4 or f/2.8) and on the other they usually have a wider angle, 16-35 / 24-70 / 17-55.

icassell · Dec 21, 2009

Indoor sports and outdoor sports have different requirements. Which are you interested in? I find that my Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 on my 7D is a good basketball lens, but not long enough for outdoor stuff (I use my 100-300mm f/4). It does pretty well with a 1.4X TC too.

Big Mike · Dec 21, 2009

The EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 IS, is the '24-70 L' for crop cameras. The image quality is easily on par with most L lenses and the focal range is spot on for a crop body camera.
The only issue, is that many of them seem to have reliability problems with the IS system when used a lot. A few photographers I know get around this by only switching the IS on, when it's really needed...which isn't all that much, considering it's such a short lens.

Other good quality options would be the EF 16-35mm F2.8L and the EF 17-40mm F4 L.