What to buy? Flash or Lense

I have a Canon EOS 10s and I have the opportunity to buy either a

100-300 mm EF 5.6L or a Flash unit for my camera.

 

I have a 24 prime, and a 35-80 zoom already.

 

Here is part of my consideration:

 

In the new year, I will be travelling to China (sp. Shanghai,

Nanjing, and Hong Kong) around Chinese new year. I will most likely

be there during the celebrations and I'll want to be taking photos

of it. Will I do better with the lens or the flash, based on my

current setup???

 

Thanks for help!

I'd recommend the 100-300 f/5.6L. It's an overall decent lens. The AF is dog slow,

the lens itself is kind of slow at f/5.6, but the important point is that it's the

(optically) finest 100-300 zoom ever made by many metrics. I have one, and use it

quite often. I AM thinking of buying the 300 f/4L IS, in which case I'd probably sell or

gift the 100-300. Still, it remains my best optic at the focal length - I don't think the

70-200 f/4L with the 1.4 TC quite matches it (although it's close).

 

Doesn't the 10 already have a built-in flash?

Yes, the camera does have a built in flash, but I am talking about a larger speedlite type flash.

I think if you want to capture atmosphere then a fast lens is a good idea, rather than a flash. I'd make sure you have at least a 50mm f/1.8 in the bag. A long telephoto isn't really ideal for city travel photography, though it has other uses for sure.

My vote for the zoom and the flash. I've been in Shanghai before and there are lot of places to take pictures. I do not know how much is your budget but if you can get 540ez is pretty cheap. It's about $150-$200 good condition at keh.com. The zoom lens 5.6L is fine, I have the 100-300mm regular and it works fine.<div></div>

One idea: <a href=http://www.photo.net/gc/view-one.tcl?classified_ad_id=559396>Canon 540EZ strobe in excellent shape $125 shipped</a> <p> --

Hi,

 

A month ago I traveled to China, Guilin http://www.virtualtourist.com/vt/f8634/ and did the Voyage of Guilin.

 

Amazing river trip, tho I can't say much for the smog. In Portrait shots skin tones looked muddy. I felt the built-in flash on the 10D didn't really do well under such poor light conditions. You shouldn't have any problems with HK, tho in Shanghai visibility is extremely bad. Im a beginner to photography, and not sure if a better flash such as the 550EX would improve conditions dramatically...I can only say be well prepared for extreme smog conditons.

 

Canon 10D, 28-135 IS USM, 512mb Lexar CF 40x

 

btw Traveling to China I WOULDN'T LEAVE

without a large capacity storage device for dumping all your images of CF...I was hoping to find a photo lab and burn my snaps of CF, that didnt happen.

 

Wishing you all the best, hope you have the time of your life, I did =)

I'd get the lens. It's a fine one. As recommended above, I'd also add the 50/1.8. Very good, very fast, very light, very cheap. Not a single lens can be said all four.

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.