What Lens To Get...

<p>I currently have 2 Canon camera bodies a 1Ds @ 1D MKII with 2 Canon lenses 17-40 L@ 70-200 4 L would a short mid range such as a 24-70 L be a good move or would a different lens be better any suggestions ?</p>

<p>The answer depends on what types of subjects you want to shoot, and under what light conditions.</p>

<p>Have you encountered situations that your present excellent lenses couldn't cover well? If so, decide what focal lengths and aperture were needed, and buy a lens with those capabilities.</p>

<p>The 24-70L would give you the advantage of f2.8 speed, if that's useful. The 24-105/4L would cover the 40-70mm focal length gap, and offers IS, but you would still have an f4 maximum aperture.</p>

<p>Either lens that Brent recommends would fill your focal length gap well, if that's what you're aiming to do. I have both lenses. I use the 24-105 as a walkabout lens, and the 24-70 mainly indoors for available light informal portraiture (along with several faster primes). The lenses have comparably superb resolution. The 24-105 exhibits more barrel distortion at the wide end, but has IS and is a little lighter and more compact. The 24-70 has smoother bokeh for portraiture, but I've shot some very fine portraits with my 24-105.</p>

<p>I agree with both Brent & Mark, but for what its worth . . . . if it were me, I'd be seriously looking at the 24-70 L with the f/2.8.</p>

<p>It would fill the focal length gap from 40-70mm and the f/2.8 would be more useful to me at times than having to live with <em>everything</em> at f/4.</p>

<p>Another thought . . . Maybe just get one of the 50mm(f/1.2,f/1.4), or the 60mm Macro!</p>

<p>Instead of getting the 24-70mm, I'd get a 50mm f/1.8 to fill the gap and use the money you save to either upgrade the 70-200mm f/4 to the f/2.8 version, or get a longer lens such as the 300mm f/4L IS, 400mm f/5.6L, or the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS. I would personally rather have a broader focal range that goes from 17-300 or 400mm with only a few small gaps, than a seamless range from 17-200mm with a lot of overlap.</p>

<p>The 60mm macro won't fit either camera as it is an EF-S mount.</p>

<p>I recall the author of The-Digital-Picture site musing that the 24-70 is a perfect fit on the 1D, more or less the 1D's "kit" lens. I find it's range very versatile on my 5D as well.</p>

<p>OOPS!</p>

<p>Thanks Nathan, I forgot about the 60mm Macro being an EF-S mount!</p>

<p>Alan I have the 1DIIN, 5DII and 7D (plus film bodies) and I love the 24-70 f2.8. My most used lenses on the 5DII or 1DIIN are the 16-35 F2.8 II, 24-70 F2.8 and the 70-200 f4 IS. As Mark and others have suggested either of the 24-105 F4 or the 24-70 F2.8 are great lenses. Personally i prefer the F2.8 lens and sold my 24-105 to buy it. There really is not a lot to choose between them and either will work well with your 17-40 and 70-200. I have the 50 F1.4 and find I don't use it that much as it is only slightly better than the 24-70 F2.8 (as my 50 F1.4 does not really get sharp until F2).<br>

The 24-70 is slightly sharper at the edges, bigger, heavier and lacks IS when compared to the 24-105. I like it as the F2.8 aperture is quite usable and I like having the shallow DOF.</p>

<p>I heard great things about the 24-70mm range [specifically on 24-70mm f/2.8 lens] in Nikon world too. It fits people as a "normal range zoom". For a while i used 17-35mm f/2.8 + 50mm f/1.8 + 105mm f/2.8 in Nikon world on a cropped body 1.5X D300, and I liked the quality I got, but at times i knew i was going to be cropping at home, or i just couldn't get enough of the landscape framing i wanted. It was a great quality/cost setup for me at the time.<br>

now i am looking at a 17-40mm f/4 + 24-70mm f/2.8 + 70-200mm f/4 setup too, but i don't now if i'll like the setup, time will tell. Zooms are sometimes great, sometimes you wish you could be using a prime instead, it just depends.<br>

Speficially for portraits i would rather use a prime, but for landscapes, the perspective changes with every few feet, you either can't be where you want to be, or you can't get enough or get too much... <br>

The greater the range of the zoom the more of the negatives come with it, and that is the case with 24-105mm, you hear people saying about upgrading to 24-70mm and improving IQ with the switch. So if image quality is your concern then definately 24-70mm f/2.8. $1200 refurbished at Adorama. $1300 new at Allens Camera [phone order only, no website ordering].<br>

If the "good primes" or should i say "best primes" like 35mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/1.4 wouldn't cost so much, i would want to use them for shots like these:<br>

<img src="http://www.robertbody.com/arizona08/images/2008-09-02-supers-stars-23434.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="500" />but indeed they are way expensive, and i wouldn't use them enough, so maybe sometimes i can rent one...<br>

because i know i want a zoom for 17-40mm range... but also i want something for low light, oh and here are specs for that picture above:=, that's a 20s exposure at f/2.8 at ISO-800, and i wouldn't be shooting at ISO-800 if it was a f/1.4 lens.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>2008-09-02-supers-stars-23434.psd - Nikon D300<br />2008-09-02 19:52:02 - (lens: 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S)<br />20s <a title="Sunny-16 f/stop, aperture, ISO table" href="http://www.robertbody.com/answers/support/fstop.html" target="_blank">f</a>/2.8 - ISO-800 - 17mm (x1.5=25mm)<br />Exp: Man.Multi-segment. +0 step. (Flash:None)<br />AdobeRGB - NEF(raw) - 39 MB - 4200K<br />Size: 3690x2460 pixels - 74% crop<br />Orig: 4288x2848 pixels - Res: 240x240dpi</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thanks all for the great advice,I think i'm going to go with Nathan's advice and go with a 300 or 400 zoom and add a 50mm later,now which one to get the 300 4 L or the 400 5.6 L ? thanks again to all who helped me out.............</p>

<p>300 has IS and will be a 420mm f/5.6 IS with the 1.4x converter. Your decision is superior quality at 300mm, IS, and good quality a 420mm w/ IS. Or superior quality at 400mm w/o IS, but I would imagine more bird shots would be shot at 400 than 300, so where do you want your best quality? I don't have to tell you all this, you can read the stats and determine which is best for you. </p>