additional lenses

[sashar]

Hi, I was wondering if anybody could suugest ana dditiona lenses for my 20D. I have now only one EFS

17-85. What other lens will make the portarait significantly better. Also for a telphoto zoom EF 100

-300 F4.5 5.6 usm or something else would be better?

Many thanks!

[ci_p]

If you can't get a decent portrait with that lens, another lens is not going to help much.

[trothwell]

You might try getting a 50/1.8 and see if that kind of lens takes you in the right direction. If you like it, you might later want to move up to something like an 85/1.8, 85/1.2, or 50/1.2, depending on your needs and budget.

[geoffrey_wiseman]

To be honest, I'd say the 17-85 (IS, USM) should be quite capable of portraiture.

 

Now, that said, I'd think the 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 might be better (faster, sharper, zoom mostly irrelevant for portraiture, good focal length for head-and-shoulders, inexpensive to moderately priced), but ... if you can't get good results with the 17-85, then I'm not sure you're going to see radical improvement here.

[mike cary]

Sasha,

 

Spending money isn?t always the right answers as sometimes all we do is apply our bad habits to more expensive equipment.

 

Can you give a few examples of what issues you?re having with the 20D 17-85 when shooting portraits or simple what you don?t like about it, ie not enough DOF control due to the small aperture as this will help people in suggesting techniques to improve your images with the equipment you currently have or to suggest the best lens for you.

[m_barbu1]

I agree with Mike. It's helpful to know to what you are comparing, when asking for something that would be significantly better.