am I going overboard with glass?

[zero_gravity]

Thanks for any help. I've been struggling with picking some lenses for my camera. I have a canon t5i and quite happy with it, I may upgrade one day down the road once it gives up the ghost. It does well for what it is.II have no ambitions to go pro or to get a full frame camera. It's just a good hobby for me.

So currently I have a reasonably good set of lenses. The idea is to cover a large range of situations and focal lengths. My good ones that I'm happy with:
Sigma 30mm f1.4
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
Tamron 90mm macro f2.8

Here's the ones I need to replace:
18-55 kit lens...we all know this one. Pretty mediocre.
75-300mm usm iii.....this zoom lens is some real butt grade crap. Can't focus for the life of it and when it finally does get anything remotely accurate the image is still garbage. It needs to die in a fire.

So replacement options...I'm really beating my head against the wall. I'd like to get something cost effective but I don't want crap. Have not been able to find that so far. I'm skeptical on needing top end with an entry level DSLR but anything cheaper always seems to have some serious downfalls.

For long lens I've been seriously considering the canon 100-400mm IS L mk1. Still, it'll cost me a pretty penny on the used market. Any worthwhile alternatives?

For the mid range I'm stumped. I did look at a nice one today at a pawn shop. 24-105 f4 IS L lens. It's beautiful, but doesn't come cheap. I'm looking at $700 CAD but I can trade in my crap lenses and talk them down a bit. Maybe $500 if I'm lucky. I checked it out and their price is pretty well spot on.

Is this just stupid overkill for my camera? Any less expensive alternatives?

 

[Overread]

Good lenses are always a worthwhile investment, even if you've got an entry level camera body. The body has a lesser effect on the image quality compared to the lens.

The only time I'd say upgrade the camera body before the lens is if you want to change the sensor size (eg go from crop sensor to fullframe). Because then the camera body makes a big difference to the frame capture which can influence what lenses you want (as its affects how each focal length looks). So unless you want to go up to 35mm it sounds very sensible to invest in lenses.


The 100-400mm MKI is a good lens, but it had a very spotty quality control, even late into its life it was still a bit iffy sometimes; most times it worked great, sometimes poor. The newer MKII is a big improvement on that. Sigma and Tamron also have some very good new offerings in the long ranges which are worth considering (eg 150-600mm and others). So do some research on them.


The 24-105 is another solid choice for a general purpose lens. The only downside on crop sensor that some have, is that 24mm is a lot longer than 18mm. There are some good crop sensor short zooms that would be worth considering as well if the wide angle is important to you.

 

[ac12]

For a mid range/General Purpose lens, I would look at the Canon 18-135.
I have the Nikon equivalent 18-140, and it is a great GP lens.
You sacrifice some optical quality for the zoom range, but man is it convenient.

The Canon 24-105 is a great Full Frame GP lens, but not so for a crop body. The 1.6x crop factor makes it have the field of view of a FF 38-168mm lens. That loss on the wide end is bad, for a GP lens.
However, for a lens used on the sideline of a football or soccer field, it is just about perfect. Because you don't need the extra wide coverage.
So, how well the lens works for YOU, depends on what you will use it for.

As for your long lens, how far out do you NEED/WANT to reach?

• Option1 - 70-300. The 70-300 is generally adequate for most people. On a crop body 300mm is pretty long. (480mm FF equiv or 9.6x magnification).
• Option2 - 100-400. Sigma and Tamron. Neither comes with a tripod mount. But only the Tamron lens has an option for a tripod mount (at $130 for the tripod mount, it brings the total price closer to the 150-600).
  
• Option3 - 150-600. The Sigma or Tamron 150-600 would take you way out there. (240-960mm FF equiv) But that is NOT a small lens, and I would not shoot it hand held, but on tripod.

On the 70-300 and 100-400, you SHOULD get the IS version of the lens. IMHO, a long lens without IS is difficult to shoot, because you won't always have bright light to shoot at 1/1000 sec or faster. And aiming a non-stabilized long lens can be difficult, because of the motion of the subject bobbing around in the viewfinder.

 

[zero_gravity]

Unfortunately the 100-400mm mk2 is out of my price range even on the used market. I can get the mk1 for less than half the price.

The wide angle isn't a big deal to me since I have the tokina 11-16. It might have a bit of distortion, but wow it's one sharp lens. I was considering the 24-105mm today simply because it seems like a great all purpose lens for outdoors. Maybe some indoors with a flash when needed.

I have looked at the sigma and tamron offerings but they're very difficult to get on the used market here. Plus when I read reviews I always find something inferior. AF accuracy and a sharp image are probably the most important to me. I'd be very happy with something less expensive if I could get those attributes.

 

[beagle100]

Unfortunately the 100-400mm mk2 is out of my price range even on the used market. I can get the mk1 for less than half the price.

The wide angle isn't a big deal to me since I have the tokina 11-16. It might have a bit of distortion, but wow it's one sharp lens. I was considering the 24-105mm today simply because it seems like a great all purpose lens for outdoors. Maybe some indoors with a flash when needed.

I have looked at the sigma and tamron offerings but they're very difficult to get on the used market here. Plus when I read reviews I always find something inferior. AF accuracy and a sharp image are probably the most important to me. I'd be very happy with something less expensive if I could get those attributes.

don't worry, the original Canon 100-400 is still good and sharp but be sure to check the lens before buying

Untitled by c w, on Flickr

 

[zero_gravity]

Thanks for the help, I did make a decision. I decided against going with a used L series. As much as I'd like one, spending $1000 on the used market is not something I can justify at this time. I'll probably never go full frame.

I ended up getting a EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM brand new. Getting it used wasn't an option, but this cost me a little over half of a used 100-400mm L mk1. This lens meet my needs and then some. Images are very sharp, focus accuracy is excellent and the IS is very good. I've read reviews claiming that this lens is actually pretty close to the image quality of an L lens. I have no way to compare, but it's believable.

 

[goooner]

Hi, I've also been investing in lenses recently, and have gone down the Tamron road, with their dock. I have the 70-200/2.8 (older version), 150-600 G2, and 90/2.8 newer version. The 'problem' with buying older lenses, is that they sometimes struggle at the higher MP ranges we are encountering now, and might not be compatible with newer cameras (tamron/sigma). My go to lens is the NIkon 18-140, that I got my D7200 with, and it is decent for what it is. But if you want to get into birding the 150-600 is probably the best bang for the buck.

The fact that you can upgrade the lens firmware yourself, using the dock is great, so you are future proofing your lens if the you decide to buy a new camera down the line. You can also fine tune your lens at different distances and focal lengths using the dock (this was a real PITA for the 150-600), but it is then like having 3-4 primes.

 

[beagle100]

Thanks for the help, I did make a decision. I decided against going with a used L series. As much as I'd like one, spending $1000 on the used market is not something I can justify at this time. I'll probably never go full frame.

I ended up getting a EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM brand new. Getting it used wasn't an option, but this cost me a little over half of a used 100-400mm L mk1. This lens meet my needs and then some. Images are very sharp, focus accuracy is excellent and the IS is very good. I've read reviews claiming that this lens is actually pretty close to the image quality of an L lens. I have no way to compare, but it's believable.

that will work, eventually you might want a longer lens for wildlife or sports
www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless