What lens should I get for Canon 5D II ?

[Fishermang]

<p>5d ii is my first full-frame camera, and I am wonderng which lens I should get for it. I am primarily interested in landscape photography, so wide angle is natural choice I guess. Having no experience with full frame cameras, and seeing all those lenses I thought I would ask for suggestions here.</p>

<p>I have been using Canon EFs 10-22 lens so far, but my problem with it was that "objects" that were farther away from me, got much smaller than they were, even with zoom. How does that work out with full frame cameras and wide angle lenses?</p>

[ken schwarz]

<p>I used the EF-S 10-22 with the 30D and liked it very much. I bought the 17-40 for the 5d2 because I thought that it would give me much the same result, and it does--only with even better image quality. The EF-S does go a smidgen wider and is a smidgen faster at the wide end, but not so much that I was willing to pay twice as much for the 16-35 zoom.<br>

Your problem with objects being too small is that you were too far from them or you were too wide with the zoom or both. The 17-40 on the 5d2 will give you a little bit more magnification, so you might find it more useful than your 10-22 on the crop camera.<br>

I think that the 24-105 is probably the safest bet as a one-lens solution, since it goes very wide (not "ultra", just "very")--wider than the standard zooms for the EF-S cameras, and goes pretty long, too, which is frequently very useful. I like IS and I didn't want the weight of the 24-70/2.8 zoom on my shoulder when traveling, so I went with that as part of the kit.</p>

[sattler123]

<p>17-40 and 24-105 for landscapes. If you shot lots of indoors or weddings, 16-35 and 24-70.</p>

[paolo de faveri]

<p>If you really want to get the best from your 21 MP sensor, stay away from any Canon wide angle zoom. None of them are able to resolve that incredibly dense sensor, particularly at borders. When I say none of them, I include the 17-40 and 16-35 II too. It seems like Canon has to rethink its entire line of wide angles soon, as their amazing newest bodies - both FF and APS-C - are all very demanding in terms of resolving power.<br>

AS you're primarily interested in landscape I think you won't mind about using MF lenses, so I suggest you to go with Zeiss 28mm (either f2 or f2,8) as moderate wide, and Nikon 14-24 for extreme wide. Using MF lenses on your 5DII will be very easy actually, as the wonderful live view feature with 10x magnification is just fantastic for finding perfect focus, no matter if your lens is MF or AF. I own a 50D and I always use live view at 10x for focusing my images, whatever the lens I have on.<br>

Cheers.<br>

Paolo</p>

[ralph_jensen]

<p>A 10-22 (on APS-C) or 17-40 (on a 5DII) is NOT a good choice as your only lens if you find that "objects that are farther away from me, get much smaller than they are, even with zoom." Nor would I recommend a manual-focus third-party Zeiss or Nikon lens for someone posing this question.</p>

<p>Sounds like the 24-105 is a great place to start, especially since there are tons of them on the used market (thanks to breaking up the "kit" package of the 5DII).</p>

<p>After you've used the 24-105 for awhile you'll have a better sense of which focal length you'll want more of (one of Canon's 70-200 lenses will be a likely candidate), and whether you want to deal with the tradeoffs of shooting with primes instead of zooms. No reason you can't eventually have both primes <em>and </em> zooms, but I'd still start with the 24-105 and see which part of that zoom range you use the most.</p>

[bueh]

<blockquote>

<p>but my problem with it was that "objects" that were farther away from me, got much smaller than they were, even with zoom. How does that work out with full frame cameras and wide angle lenses?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Welcome to photography and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography)"><b>perspective distortion</b> </a> ! If you want no "apparent" perspective distortion, you have to use a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_lens"><b>normal lens</b> </a> . Its angle-of-view is much smaller than with a wide angle, though, but you cannot have all...</p>

[squareframe]

<p>this photography pursuit is fascinating. I am not sure what a 5DII costs these days, but how strange it seems to invest that much money without identifying a lens or giving more than a casual thought to what you would like to accomplish.</p>

<p>enjoy your new camera ...</p>

<p> </p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>The 10-22 is an EF-S lens and won't work on the 5DII (or any full frame camera). The widest you can go is the Sigma 12-24, which is an excellent lens in its own ways (control of distortion and CA) but has shortcomings that you would expect from such an extreme lens (slight softness, mild ghosting, difficult quality control, less-than-stellar contrast). I own it an love it, but I wouldn't recommend it for landscape work. </p>

<p>Instead, I like my 17-40, which is fairly affordable for an L lens. It's a tiny bit soft right in the corners but tack sharp everywhere else. Contrast is excellent. There's a bit of barreling, but that's not really a problem for landscape work.</p>

<p>I think the 24-105 is a strong offering for a walk-around lens. People either love the lens or hate it, for some reason, but I think more people love than hate. Mine is quite sharp and contrasty, and the IS works very intuitively. It's a very "comfortable" lens to me -- very versatile. The only drawback that I notice is vignetting on the wide end -- not a big deal. If I were only buying a single lens for the 5DII, this would be the one.</p>

<p>You can continue f/4 optics with the 70-200 f/4, but the (non-L) 70-300 IS is worth a very serious look. It's build isn't as good, but it appears to be quite up-to-snuff optically.</p>

[tdigi]

<p>If your primary interest is landscape I think a 17-40 is a no brainer considering its price and range. </p>

[Fishermang]

<p>Daniel, I haven't bought 5DII yet. I am figuring out all options before spending that much money, but I am sure I will get 5DII, only trying to find the best lens for me.<br>

Also, I didnt mean to say that I want to avoid the perspective distortion I always get with EFs 10-22. Was just wondering if the wide angle lenses such as 16-35 or 17-40 behave in a somewhat different way (which at least 17-40 does as Ken pointed out, thanks!)</p>

 

[bueh]

<blockquote>

<p>Was just wondering if the wide angle lenses such as 16-35 or 17-40 behave in a somewhat different way</p>

</blockquote>

<p>All wide angles perform the same way. Perspective distortion is a feature and will always be there, making farther things smaller and closer thing larger in relation when using wide angle lenses. How strong this forced perspective is depends on the angle-of-view, which is a function of focal length and format (negative/sensor diameter). Apparent perspective is also influenced by subject distance, camera position & tilt and how the composition is generally (if there is no background due to a neutral studio screen, even a wide angle lens looks apparently more normal and can be used for portraiture).</p>

[myworkshop]

<p>If you're on the fence about a lens, rent a couple and see which one you like best. There are a few companies on the net that aren't too expensive. Trying them out yourself is the only real way to see if it will do what you want. But if you buy a lens without trying it, rest assured, you can always sell it for 80% of what you paid as long as it's in excellent shape.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>If wide angle landscape photography typically done from a tripod and at small apertures is what you contemplate, the EF 17-40mm f/4 is an excellent choice among zooms. I've been using this lens for a couple of years on a 5D and before that on a cropped sensor body. (I was less thrilled with it on the former body.)</p>

<p>At f/8-f/16 the corner softness issues that this lens can have at larger apertures are not significant. This is a very sharp zoom in the center of the frame and at the smaller apertures it is quite good across the frame.</p>

<p>Continuing with the "landscape zoom" theme, I also like the EF 24-105mm f/4 IS for this purpose as well. It is also quite a sharp lens, at its best only exceeded a little bit by some of my sharper primes - but it is plenty sharp and its versatility and utility mean more to me most of the time than the small (and often insignificant) increased resolultion from the primes.</p>

<p>Part of my landscape photograhy is done while backpacking, sometimes for a week or more at a time. I have to think about how heavy and bulky my gear is. These are the two core lenses in my basic kit. (If I had to pare it down to one lens I would <em>probably</em> make it the 24-105, but it might depend on where I was going.)</p>

<p>I agree with previous posters that any barrel distortion issues with these lenses are not a really big deal in most cases, especially with landscape. There are exceptions, notably when the horizon or other straight line appears near a frame edge. Despite what you may have heard, post-process distortion correction works very well in these occasional situations.</p>

<p>The "you'll need better lenses to 'take advantage of' the greater sensor resolution of the 5D2" business needs to be questioned a bit. In virtually all cases I find that the factor limiting the potential enlargement of a photograph from a 5D1 are usually <em>not</em> sensor resolution. In fact, it is hard for me to think of a situation in which that became a problem before focus, camera motion, lens quality, etc. set a limit on the maximum print size.</p>

<p>Finally, for my landscape photography I also rely on additional lenses. These include a coupe zooms (notably the f/4 70-200 and the 100-400) and a few primes.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[lmwalker]

<p>On my 5D I consider the 24-105 the must have lens, especially for landscape photography. I also use a Sigma 12-24 when I need to go wider than 24mm, but I find the Sigma much more challenging to get good results from. It is not as sharp, and the focusing isn't as accurate. And then there is the perspective distortion that requires a lot more compositional thought and effort to make it work for you.<br>

<a href="http://www.pbase.com/lmwalker/canon_ef_24_105_hires">http://www.pbase.com/lmwalker/canon_ef_24_105_hires</a><br /><a href="http://www.pbase.com/lmwalker/sigma_12_24_hires">http://www.pbase.com/lmwalker/sigma_12_24_hires</a></p>

[Fishermang]

<p>Look at this photo of mine, a beach photo. With EFs 10-22 those waves look really small, while in reality they were around 1 meter or more. That's when I really got disappointed, especially considering that those waves were 3-4 meters away from me. I was thus wondering if full-frame censor could have more possibilities to give a more realistic perspective on them, with wide angle lens.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/7207049-lg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="750" /></p>

<p>Also, what is the difference between 17-40 and 16-35? Except for those numbers that is, if any? I am seeing most suggestions towards the first alternative, and I prefet continuing shooting with more wide angles, so I am currently thinking about getting one of these two, but also checking out the other alternatives mention in this thread. Many thanks for help!</p>

[bueh]

<blockquote>

<p>I was thus wondering if full-frame censor could have more possibilities to give a more realistic perspective on them, with wide angle lens.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ramunas, spend some time reading about the basics of photography, visual perception and optics. Perspective is no error and a wide angle lens will ALWAYS render perspective different than you or experience it. The only way to get a "realistic" pespective is by using a normal lens, which has a much smaller angle-of-view than a ultra-wide zoom. No post-processing will change the law of optics. The only way to get "realistic" perspective in an wide-angle image is by cropping it to the angle-of-view of a normal lens.</p>

[images_in_light_north_west]

<p>The 17-40 is as good as the 16-35 stopped down to f8 or smaller, at large apertures the 16-35 is better, you might consider the 24 f1.4L and the 35 f1.4L and use GND filters for very wide angle shots and don't us a CPL with lots of sky in the shot. See this <a href="http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-17-40mm-f-4.0-L-USM-Lens-Review.aspx">review</a> of the 17-40<br>

Ross</p>

[matthias_meixner2]

<p>Things become small with an ultra wide lens. This does not change with a full frame sensor. For you the 24-105 would be more suitable. On the other hand, may be you should just buy the 24-105 first and learn to use it with your existing camera before switching to the 5D.</p>

[Fishermang]

<p>Blue B,</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Ramunas, spend some time reading about the basics of photography, visual perception and optics. Perspective is no error and a wide angle lens will ALWAYS render perspective different than you or experience it. The only way to get a "realistic" pespective is by using a normal lens, which has a much smaller angle-of-view than a ultra-wide zoom. No post-processing will change the law of optics. The only way to get "realistic" perspective in an wide-angle image is by cropping it to the angle-of-view of a normal lens.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I am fully aware that wide angles will always render perspective. Somehow it seems people keep misunderstanding what I am asking for here, hehe. I am wondering about this:</p>

<p>How does i.e. 17-40 or 16-35 on full frame camera compare to my EFs 10-22 on EOS 350D, when it comes to "lens perception" (to put it that way) or is there no difference at all?</p>

[bueh]

<p>There is no difference at all if the lenses have the same field-of-view regardless of format. Sure, such things like depth-of-field, optical aberrations, tonality and apparent lack or richness of details will be different, but if the FOV is the same, perspective distortion will be the same, too.<br>

This is why everyone keeps saying "this or that lens is like an XX-XXmm" when referring to a digital lens -- it is not, but it looks like one in regards to the most obvious elements in an image -- perspective and FOV. This means, your EF-S 10-22mm @ 10mm on a crop-factor camera will produce very much the same look as the EF 16-35mm @16mm on a full-frame camera in terms of forced perspective and field-of-view. The EF 17-40mm at its shortest end (17mm) is something like 11mm on your EF-S 10-22mm lens.</p>

[dpassmore]

<p>Hi Ramunas,</p>

<p>I use a crop camera myself so have no personal experience with full frame, but from what I understand:</p>

<p>Canon crop is 1.6x. So, taking the 10-22mm lens as an example, 10x1.6=16 and 22x1.6=35, so the field of view of the 10-22mm lens on your crop camera will be exactly the same as the 16-35mm lens on a full frame camera. You will see no difference between 10mm on your 350D and 16mm on the 5DMII.</p>

<p>BTW, the 16-35mm lens is f/2.8 whereas the 17-40 is f/4.0, that is the main reason why the huge price differential between the two.</p>

 

[Fishermang]

<p>Ok, thanks very much for the replies, I have a much better clue of how it works now!</p>

[w_t1]

<p>Check out Fred Miranda web site for more specific reviews. I'm sure we all know this, but if camera is in the same spot, then:</p>

<p>20mm lens on 5d full frame body, object height (your 1m wave, for instance) at the film/sensor plane = Y</p>

<p>20mm lens on 50d crop body, object height is also Y.</p>

<p>If you want to change the perspective in the photo, move the camera, or move your feet, whatever the case may be.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Have you given any thought to starting with a priime? I like the EF 24mm f/1.4 with the original 5D, although I confess that the EF 24-70mm f/2.8 is almost as good at the wide end.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[marknagel]

<p>I compared a 10-22 on 40D and 16-35L on 5D. The 16-35L was noticably sharper. If you are happy witht he 10-22, this is the exact match (1.6x 10-22 equals 16-35).</p>

<p>If you want more zoom, which it sounds like, you may consider the 24-70L or 24-105L. 24mm is quite wide on a FF. and 70mm and 105mm or more than "normal" (will give magnification over eye sight).</p>

<p>I use my 24-70L most on my 5D and 5D MKii, and then 35/1.4, then 16-35. Recently been playing with an 8mm fisheye alot.</p>

<p>m</p>