A Few Simple Questions

[Wired]

Ok well I am getting the Canon EOS 350D and I am curious what some good lenses for it would be? I have heard of all of these different brands. Sigma, Tamron, and Canon. Which brand is better for photographing landscapes and nature/forest shots? Also will any Canon lense fit on the 350D? If I could have these questions answered I would appreciate. Thank!

 

[Do'Urden's Eyes]

all canon lenses with the initials EF/EF-S in front of them will fit your 350D. The common advantage of purchasing a sigma or tamron lens is the price. often theyre significantly less expensive than their canon counterpart. for example the canon 70-200mm F/2.8 is about 1300 CDN dollars, and the tamron version is only 900. however this reduction in price also comes with a decrease in performance. But, ive heard that SOME sigma and tamron lenses perform BETTER than the canon equivalent.

Now the question of which brand is more suited to landscape photography is the wrong question to be asking. it is a matter of focal length. typically a wider lens is preferred for landscapes (lower numbers ie. 17mm) rather than a lens with a higher focal lenths (200mm gets you closer to subjects that are farther away).

if you tell us your budget we would be able to recommend some lesnes for you.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

Any Canon EF or EF-S lens will fit the EOS 350D. This is essentially any Canon lens introduced since 1987.

The brand of your lenses isn't their most important specification. Canon currently offers more than five dozen different lenses for this camera, but there are a few good ones available from Tamron, Sigma, Tokina and Zeiss, as well.

When selecting a lens, you first want to decide what focal length or range of focal lengths you need. The EOS 350D normally comes with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens in a kit. This range from 18-55mm allows a lot of general photography. If you're getting the camera body alone without a lens, consider the US$440 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 as a good quality lens in this focal length range. For landscapes, you probably want something at least as wide-angle as 18mm.

Once you've selected the focal length or range of focal lengths for your lens, look at the maximum aperture (expressed as a ratio to the focal length, f). Each f-stop gathers half as much light as the one before it: f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, etc. The EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM kit lens has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at the wide end and f/5.6 at the telephoto end of the zoom range. The Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 has a maximum aperture of f/2.8, meaning that it gathers four times as much light as the f/5.6 kit lens when zoomed in at 50mm. That means that you can shoot with 1/4 the exposure length or 1/4 of the ISO setting.