Lens choice please help, opinions needed.

[rizzle]

Hi there first post and firstly wanted to say hi to you all.

My question is basically a choice between two lenses, I have a Canon 30D with the kit 18-55mm lens and wanted to get one with a greater zoom. Im looking mainly for landscape and wildlife photography but would also like to do some portraits and have a few weddings coming up with which I am going to take some photos.

Now the two lenses I am looking at are currently both the same price so with that said which one would best suit my needs and is a better lens?

Sigma 70-300mm 4-5.6 Canon APO DG Macro
or
Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC Canon


Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions

 

[Village Idiot]

70-200 f/2.8L IS MKII. That is your only option.

 

[Overread]

I would say of the two go for the sigma 70-300mm APO edition (make sure you get the APO with the red ring around the end of the lens as it is optically superior to the older version which lacks the APO coatings and the red ring).

It gives you a long range suitable for wildlife and its image quality is decent. It also gives you a good quality close up focusing lens which is great for flowers and similar sized subjects.

The 18-200mm lens is zooming through a much greater range (the difference between small numbers in focal length is a lot more than between the bigger numbers) and as such its image quality suffers. It's designed to be a cheap lens that does it all so that you just have one on the camera - however because of that fact it fails to really shine in any area.

Neither lens is well suited to typical wedding photography and I would say for that your kit lens would be better. You might also consider a 50mm f1.8 for that kind of work for its f1.8 which is a much wider aperture and thus much more suitable for lower light conditions.


Also you might want to consider the two following books
The Digital Photography book 1 by Scot Kelby - a basic introduction book that gives you a nice, easy to understand series of starting points for different areas of photography. It's not giving you major pointers, just the place to start.

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson - a good introduction book to understanding exposure in your photography and an ideal read for anyone new to the subject to get some good advice and a good starting point as well as some creative ideas


Cheeky as he is at times

70-200 f/2.8L IS MKII. That is your only option.

is pretty well correct if your budget was a lot larger for the areas of photography that you specify. However its a massive cost compared to the others you've listed so I'm assuming that its well outside of your current budget



Ps are you shooting the wedding as just a friend going to the wedding or as "the photographer" (sorry to ask but we get both kinds here and unless you say so you always get assumed to be the latter group

 

[memento]

there's also the EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM..

 

[bigtwinky]

Neither of those will help during a low light wedding. You need faster glass for that, similar to what Idiot said.

I have no idea what your budget is.

The main issue is that you want something that can go wide (landscape) to telephoto (wildlife) and do portraits (medium) and be fast (weddings). And seeing as you picked 2 Sigmas, I'm thinking your budget is what $600?

You have to pick what you want. Either landscape - portrait or portrait - wildlife.
Landscape portrait, look at the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8
Portrait wildlife, look a the EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS ... although 200 is short for wildlife. Might want maybe the new 70-300 f/4-5.6, but this isnt a fast lens and you will suffer during weddings.

 

[Overread]

Just a point but the 18-200mm retails at around $250.00 on amazon US so that is some of an idea of the OPs current budget

 

[rizzle]

thanks for your responses guys, I guess I should have added a little more info. Basically I can get the two mentioned lenses for under $300CAD and I am still learning the craft so whilst I would love to get a high end lens I just want to start off with something that does a decent value lens without a lot of cost while Im still getting the hang of it.

The main use would be for landscape and wildlife so something I guess with a decent zoom as I would like to be able to bring the photos of the animals in closer and with the lens I have right now thats just not possible.

Thanks for the replies and I hope the expanded info will help with your responses

 

[bigtwinky]

If it helps, a typical complimentary lens sold in kits with new cameras and the 18-55 is the 55-250mm telephoto lens. Works nice, entry level, 200-300.

 

[Overread]

Rizzle go for the 70-300mm
Your kit lens already covers the 18mm wide angle end through to 55mm which is more than enough for a lot of landscape work (and if its not wide enough you can learn to pan and stitch shots together even in basic editing packages like photoshop elements).

300mm is where wildlife photography "starts". You'll always be wanting more and more focal length, but 300mm is a solid place to begin. From there a big part of the difference in getting the close up shots isn't always the lens, but the fieldcraft and getting closer - or making the wildlife come closer to yourself.

 

[Derrel]

Just a point but the 18-200mm retails at around $250.00 on amazon US so that is some of an idea of the OPs current budget

Yeah...around the budget for the wedding invitations, MINUS the postage stamp costs...

In other words, both lenses are so cheap that the average bride will have more tied up in her wedding invites than the 'photog' would in his lens. The Sigma 70-300 on a 1.6x Canon crop body....hmmm....Field of View equivalents of 112mm to 480mm...mostly useless for wedding/event work.

The 18-200, with its slow f/stop range, while pathetic in terms of lens speed, at least has the right focal length range to do bright light weddings and everything-with-flash shooting. I shudder to think of what the pics might look like.