Thinking of buying a 28-300 lens...

[surfingfireman]

What should I be looking for or be careful of when buying a 28-300mm lens?
I am considering a Tamron or Sigma which I think are good names in lenses. And I am assuming a key factor in a lens is it's speed. Would an f/3.5-6.3 be good? And with the Tamron is there a big difference between the Aspherical and Super Aspherical or XR?

Thanks for any advice.

C-YA

Mike

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

I don't really know oo much about lenses, but I do know one thing to make sure of. Not all lense mounts are the same so make sure the lense will attach itself to your camera

 

[doxx]

if you're somwhat interested in image quality stay away from a zoom with that enormous range. Also these lenses are slow...(f6.3 ) I'd suggest a faster 28-135mm (or 105mm), which covers most of "normal" tasks. Add a 100-200 mm (or up to 300mm if you really need it) zoom and you're all set.

happy shooting!

 

[dlc]

doxx is right. The fastest zoom you will be able to get is a short zoom(28-70) with a constant aperature of F2.8 and higher cost. Usually the wider the zoom range, the less quality at all the zoom settings, altho they are decent lenses for general photography and convenient.

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

could someone explain this lense stuff to me? Like when u say a faster lense, what does that mean? Why is a fixed lense better? why a fixed aperture?

 

[dlc]

The faster the lens, the more light gets in at its maximum aperature. f1.7 is faster than f2.8. f4 is faster than f5.6 etc. The smaller the f number, the faster the lens. Usually prime lenses are faster per focal length than zoom lenses.

 

[voodoocat]

Faster means lower aperature.

Fast would probably be 2.8 and lower. I have a 1.7 50mm lens which is 1 stop faster than 2.8.

Fixed aperature is better because you can retain the low aperature throughout the zoom. These lenses are incredbily expensive. Say you have a 80-200 F3.5-5.6 the lowest aperature you can get on 80 is 3.5, the lowest you can get when it is at 200mm is 5.6.

Fixed lenses are non-zoom lenses. They are sharper because there have less elements.

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

Alright I understand the benefit of having a smaller f-stop, but I can set my lense to its smallest at any focal length, so i still don't understand the fixed length thing. On a side note, do the other lenses like an f 3.5-5.6 like u said, go up to a real high aperature to or do they stop at 5.6?

 

[voodoocat]

Alright I understand the benefit of having a smaller f-stop, but I can set my lense to its smallest at any focal length, so i still don't understand the fixed length thing. On a side note, do the other lenses like an f 3.5-5.6 like u said, go up to a real high aperature to or do they stop at 5.6?

That refers to the lowest aperature. Most lenses will go up to F22, sometimes F32.

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

Ok, thats what i figured, just making sure, It all makes sense now.