New here: Shopping to expand gear..

[cftofu2k]

Hi All,

I am new to this forum. Thought I’d sign up to expand my knowledge since photography is becoming more and more of a hobby of mine. I have a 350D with kit lens and 50mm 1.8 prime (portrait shooting). I am looking to expand my gear and had a few questions:

1) I want to replace my rebel kit lens and the best glass for the price looks to be the Tamron SP AF28-75MM for about $350. Does anyone know of a good deal online for this? Any alternative lens that I may not know about?

2) Looking for an external flash.. The only one's i've come across are the Canon 380 & 420. Would the 380 be sufficient for shooting inside a club/lounge with strobes, lights, etc.? I haven't done much flash photography.. but live in San Francisco, and have the opportunity to shoot some events.

3) Lastly, im looking for a camera bag, something not too small and not too big. Ideally, it should carry around 4 lens and body. a messenger/shoulder type bag would do, but something comfortable to take hiking would be nice too. I've heard of Lowepro and Crumpler, but they have so many choices on their websites that its hard to pick the right one for me. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[thebeginning]

welcome to TPF! it's a great place here, i'm sure you'll soon get sucked into posting regularly

i'll answer what i can...

1) the tamron 28-75 is a greatly underrated lens. it's very good for the money, and is a great alternative to the 3 times as expensive canon 24-70 2.8L. the only problem with getting this lens is that you won't have much of a wide end. if you like shooting wide angle, you'll want to get something at least 18mm (or wider). the new canon 17-55 2.8 IS or tamron 17-50 2.8 are both wonderful, but a little pricey. the tamron is the cheaper of the two, but it's still very good.

2) there are several external flashes that you could choose from. you should stick with canon flash, probably something mid-range. the 430ex would be your best choice in my opinion (it's about $230 USD). it's the recently announced succesor to the 420ex. the best lens to get from them is the 580ex, which is basically a more powerful, more manual control version of the 430ex.

3) Camera bags are a little overrated in my opinion. I said that partially because i'm a little addicted to them, and need to give them up . I don't have many, you'll have to check with Chris (his username here is LittleMan) for that...he has tons. If you know you're going to be buying more equipment in the future, it's best to buy bigger than you think you need. I bought a medium-sized tamrac bag when i first started getting equipment, even though I only had one camera and lens to put in it. At first you feel like an idiot carrying around a few items in a big bag, but once you start filling it out with more equipment, it's a sweet feeling . It's good to buy one bigger bag to hold all or most of your equipment and a small bag to carry around one camera and a few lenses for when you're just walking around. I recommend getting a nice big bag online (or a local place if you find a good deal, like something used) then going to a local camera store and looking at their clearance rack (or something similar) for a cheap small bag. I have a nice medium sized bag from tamrac that can hold 2 bodies, a 70-200, 4 other lenses, and 2 flashes...I got it used for 60 bucks. I got a clearanced crappy 'quantaray' small bag that holds one body with small lens attached plus 1-2 other small lenses for 12 bucks. They both have worked great for me. Needless to say, if you want to buy a brand new bag that's 'stylish' and easy to carry, check out the slingshot 200 AW from lowepro.

hope that helped!

 

[cftofu2k]

Thank you for your response.

I do not find myself shooting too many wide angle shots for now, so wide angle glass would probably follow later on in the future. I haven't done much research, but would there be a wide angle prime lens that is worth looking into? I did play around with a 17-55 2.8 which was fun. I wouldn't utilize it at the moment though & it is pricey if I remember correctly. I will be ordering the Tamron 28-75 shortly.

As for flash, I may try to fish for a used 400 series to save on cost. Usually im cautious about buying used glass, but a used flash unit should be fine - if the price is right.

I was actually looking at the Lowepro slingshot and will most likely get that. If it gets too small in the future, it can always act as a secondary bag for short trips.

Thanks again!
:mrgreen:

 

[hot shot]

welcome. dont forget that the sensor has a magnification of 1.5 so you need to times the lense magnification by 1.5 to get the acctual magnification

 

[thebeginning]

welcome. dont forget that the sensor has a magnification of 1.5 so you need to times the lense magnification by 1.5 to get the acctual magnification

not quite. it's a crop, not a magnification. it just appears to be a magnified focal length when in reality it's the same one both times, just taken in a different perspective. kinda like how a 45mm on a MF is considered wide angle. I think that's right. lol