jon_kobeck1 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 I use a 5D and do alot of street stuff, documentary etc. I was using the 24-702.8L but that thing is like a brick. I was thinking of selling it and buying primes, or a lighter smaller zoom. any advice? My problem is I am hung up on L glass, I am afraid to buy inferior lenses. I know for 1k I could buy 3 canon prime non L lenses or one 24mm L lens. Advice please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdigi Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Get a 50 1.4. You will get the same quality photos as the L. If you want L glass and a bit wider get the 35 1.4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliot1 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 I don't think you will find a better smaller zoom that you would be happy with to replace your lens. I have the 50mm f1.4 and like it, but would not give up my 24-70mm in place of it. But I do like having both. Perhaps you can keep your lens and get one prime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 The thing about Primes is that you are constantly switching lenses inviting dust into your camera. You didn't say if you were shooting for pleasure or for profit. If you are shooting for pleasure Tamron has 28-75mm f2.8 that is extremely sharp compact and very light. For street stuff, I use the Canon 28-105mm f3.5/4.5 which cost about $250. It isn't as sharp as the Tamron, but it is allot sturdier. If you insist on "L" series lenses, then the primes might be you best bet, but that means you would probably have to buy 3 lenses to cover the range of the 24-70mm. This might take allot of room in your back pack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brad_w Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Buy a 28/2.8. Not a 28/1.8. Not 24L. Not a 35L. Put the 28 on your 5D and leave it there. Do not take it off for one month. Do not use any other lenses or any other cameras for that month. Shoot 300 pictures a day, everyday. After doing this for an entire month (yes, 9000 images with just one fixed lens...) decide what you need, if anything. Honestly, Jon, I'm being a little sarcastic here, but not that much. From your portfolio, it's clear that you don't really understand lens position. Shooting extensively with a single prime lens is really the only way to learn that. Ellis said it best in your other post - don't let equipment get in the way of your photography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_quinn1 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 The 35mm L is not exactly small either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_kobeck1 Posted August 17, 2008 Author Share Posted August 17, 2008 Brad: what do you mean by lens position? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_kobeck1 Posted August 17, 2008 Author Share Posted August 17, 2008 The other zoom I was considering was the 16-35mm f/2.8L II since I seem to be more at the 24 end of the 24-70, although that lens is 1.5 pounds and 4.5 inches as opposed to the 24-70 thats 2.1 pounds and about 6 inches at the 24 end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcolwell Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Why not try the EF 24/2.8? I use a lot of L lenses, and the simple 24/2.8 rarely disappoints me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g dan mitchell Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 A few things... First, L glass is not the only thing that will work, especially for street photography and double-especially if you decide to use primes. In fact, if your goal in using primes for "street" work to lighten/shrink your gear then using L primes will be counterproductive. These lenses compete with some of the Canon L wide zooms on the basis of size/weight. There are some quite decent non-L lenses that will be smaller and lighter and will produce excellent images, especially for handheld photography like you are probably doing in this genre. The 50mm f/1.4, the 35mm f/2 and a few others come to mind. Second, the question of whether to use zooms or primes is personal and there is not correct answer. I know a lot of people use primes to shoot street, but others prefer zooms. I'm in the latter camp. I feel that I can react more quickly and generally get more effective compositions with zooms. My primary lens is usually the 24-105mm f/4 L IS (and IS is helpful here, too) on a 5D, but I also like to use the 17-40mm f/4 in certain situations, including in very crowded areas. Third, while YMMV it seems to me that a super large aperture lens can sometimes not be the best thing for street. Often - at least the way I shoot - I'm working quickly and I don't always have time to carefully find focus points and so forth. For this reason, using a really big aperture with its very narrow DOF makes it less likely that I'll get the focus I want - while using a somewhat smaller aperture, even at the expense of shooting at a higher ISO, is going to work more consistently. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel barrera houston, Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 The Tamron mentioned above is very good, it is small and light, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert lee Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Here's a cheap way to start finding out whether you'd be happy with primes. Spend $80 on an EF 50mm f1.8. Compare it with the L zoom especially at wide apertures. I have the 24-70 f2.8L and a handful of EF primes in that focal range. I generally find the primes more satisfying although you'd have suspected the price differential to indicate otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 I can't see that it makes sense as an "either one or the other" sort of choice. Granted, the L glass is heavy. There are lighter zooms, but they as a rule will not have the features that you bought (and paid for) when you got the L lenses. Mass, large apertures, and (to a substantial degree) quality are intertwined - as the song says "you can't have one without the other(s)". You may want to get a smaller, slower IS lens as a walk-around shooter, keep what you have to use when you need it, AND buy some really nice, but relatively inexpensive primes (many of which AS primes will rival even the best variable focal length lenses). There are, of course, some nice L primes, but try some of the cheaper ones first, I think you'll be surprised what you can get for a couple of hundred bucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogbert Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 "My problem is I am hung up on L glass" Getting over this problem will be the first step towards better photography. L fetish is such a silly and inhibiting affliction. Many of Canon's cheap primes outperform L zooms. You've blown about $3k on equipment already and you haven't even tried a $75 lens like the 50 f1.8 or a $230 lens like the 35 f2 to work this out for yourself? Isn't this whole question misplaced anguish. Check out Mike Dixon's work and see what he does with the somewhat maligned 28 f1.8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brad_w Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Jon, David Hurn says there are two basic controls in photography: where to stand and when to press the shutter. "When the press the shutter" is moment. "Where to stand" is lens position. Let's say you're photographing a scene. You can get really really close and shoot with a wide angle or you can back up and shoot long. Obviously, any suitable mathematical combination of subject distance and focal length will include the same elements in the scene, but which do you choose? Understanding that is lens position. There's no singe correct answer. It's one of the intuitive parts of photography that - thankfully - can never be taught. Every needs to figure it out one their own. The problem with zooms is that lens position is very difficult to learn. Most folks are too busy wracking the zoom in and out hoping to find something that looks alright. They never learn what a 35mm frame looks like, or a 50 mm frame. I hate using myself as an example but I'm the only one whose work habits I know well enough. I shot with a 28 as my only lens for my first year and half of photography. It worked for me and now I have 28 hard-wired into my brain. I know before I look through the finder what I will see, both in angle of view and depth of field. When I wanted to 'get serious' I traded the 28 for a 24 + 35 combination and spent the next 3 months swapping lenses instead of taking pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g dan mitchell Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 "The problem with zooms is that lens position is very difficult to learn. Most folks are too busy wracking the zoom in and out hoping to find something that looks alright. They never learn what a 35mm frame looks like, or a 50 mm frame." I pretty much completely disagree with this idea. While I shoot primes and zooms, I firmly believe that for beginners the zoom is the better learning tool. If you want to learn a particular focal length, and this can be a good exercise, you can do that on the zoom by setting the FL and leaving it there. However, there are significant elements of composition that depend on being able to vary the FL and you can only learn and understand them by, uh, varying the FL - either by using multiple primes or by using a zoom. To use your "where to stand" variable, imagine a scene with a small central subject and a somewhat more distant background. How do you want to handle the relationship between the subject and the background? With the zoom you can control their relative "size" in the frame along with some aspects of DOF/OOF by moving forward/backward while adjusting the FL to keep the subject the same size. The result is that the relative size of the background object changes relative to the main subject. Can't do that with a single FL And... for the beginner _fun_ is also a critical thing, and using a zoom is going to be, dare I say it, more fun. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lou korell Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 The 50 1.4 is very light to carry and a good lens. The 35 1.4 is heavier but it is a remarkable lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now