News Lenses

bakstreet · Jun 14, 2007

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and other than recreational photography, somewhat new to photography.

I currently have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT w/ a 18-55mm lense. The lense is the stock lense the camera comes with. My wife has gotten into portrait shooting and we are looking to upgrade the lense as it seems like it is difficult to find the right lighting all of the time. We have lights, backdrops, backdrop stands and some props. Our lights are hot lights, and at some point I would like to upgrade those to strobes. I would like to get her a new lense that would be better suited for portrait shooting. Most of her portraits are of babies, children or belly pics. I was wondering if there is a lense or a couple of lenses that you would recommend. I'd like to hear about anything from the most expensive lense to the cheapest. Of course I want it to serve its purpose and all.

I would also like to invest in a telephoto lense so I could shoot some sporting events. I'm most interested in using it for taking bicycle racing pictures. Like I said I'm pretty green at all of this so if anyone has any suggestions other than just lenses please let me know. We have taken some really great pics with our current lense but I'm looking to move forward.

Thanks.

Big Mike · Jun 14, 2007

Welcome to the forum.

There range is wide and varied...so what's your budget?

In a studio setting, if you have enough light to shoot at F8 or so, the kit lens isn't really that bad. It's when shooting in lower light situations that it really shows it's weaknesses. That being said, a top quality lens can really blow your socks off in terms of image quality.

Typically for portrait, a longer focal length is better because it flattens, rather than accentuates...but if you don't have a lot of space, then you need the wider lenses.

Some lenses;
Canon EF-S 17-55 F2.8 IS: Probably the best lens in this range. Very good image quality and good for low light shooting. Rather expensive.
Canon EF-S 17-85 F4-5.6 IS: Better than the kit lens but not any faster (aperture size).
Tamron 17-50 F2.8: Great lens, I have this one. Fast maximum aperture and great image quality. Much less expensive than the Canon 17-55 F2.8
Sigma also has an 18-50 which is similar to the Tamron.

There there are prime (non zoom) lenses. The image quality is usually quite high...higher than zoom lenses for the price you pay. Top of the line might be the Canon 35mm F1.4 or the 85mm F1.2...but either of these will cost well over $1000. I recently picked up the Sigma 30mm F1.4 and it's a great lens at a fraction of the price of the Canon equivalent.
A 50mm F1.8 is a great lens and it's dirt cheap...slightly better is the 50mm F1.4 model...but it's more than twice the price.
The Canon 85mm F1.8 is a great lens at a great price, great for portraits.

The Canon 24-70 F2.8 L is a big heavy lens but with outstanding image quality. Any of Canon's L lenses are great...but they cost a lot. Sigma has a 24-70 F2.8 lens that is almost as good but a lot less.

As for a telephoto for sports...the 70-200 F2.8 IS would be a good choice...but again, it's very expensive. You can get it cheaper without the IS, or as an F4 versions (again with or without IS). All four versions are very very good. For sports, the wide F2.8 aperture would be a big benefit.

As you see...it would be easy to spend a few thousand dollars in a few minutes here...so you should define a budget first.

bakstreet · Jun 14, 2007

I was hoping to keep the telephoto lense under say $700.00. But then again if I can get the same with a sigma as with the canon I'd rather spend less. So, there wouldn't be any problems using the sigma lense on my camera?

As far as the portrait lense I hadn't really set a budget on that one yet. Probably around the same $ if possible.

We had some problems with our camera and it wouldn't white balance or auto focus. So a lot of our pics came back either really hot or yellow and slightly blurred. I've since been trying to figure out all of the manual settings. We always used a manual setting with portraits to avoid using the flash, but the camera wasn't white balancing and totally screwed up a setting of pics.