what type of lens should i buy?

[joseph_lacerda]

<p>i bought a new canon 50d and do not know what type of lens i should buy. i want to take portraits of people and pictures of buildings and other images of still objects. what would be the best lens for what i want to do? if possible, i would like the lens to be under 300. thank you</p>

[tdigi]

<p>Do you have any lenses? why did you choose the 50D?</p>

[joseph_lacerda]

<p>i would like a lower priced lens. the lower, the better. but i want something that takes decent photos. if you could list a couple of lenses from lowest to highest that are for what i want to do, i would greatly appreciate it.</p>

[trevor_martin]

<p>You're going to have some trouble if you are hoping to do all of that with a single lens. I'm assuming for the moment that you at least have the kit lens that came with the camera. I would suggest that you purchase the canon 50mm 1.8. On a crop camera the 50mm acts more like an 80m lens, which would make it a good starting portrait lens, it costs around $80 new. </p>

[bueh]

<blockquote>

<p>i would like a lower priced lens. the lower, the better.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You get what you pay for. Welcome to the world of photography!</p>

<p>Seriously, if you want to take decent pictures cheap, check out the EF <a href="../photodb/folder?folder_id=783085"><strong>50mm</strong> </a> f/1.8 and the EF-S 18-55mm IS kit zoom. Best bang for the buck there is, it's all downhill from there.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>If this is your first DSLR and you really have no idea what lens to buy (or, one might presume, the reasons behind specific lens choices) the best thing to do at first is to get the very inexpensive but decent little image-stabilized version of the Canon EFS 18-55mm "kit" lens.</p>

<p>Better to get that at very low cost, shoot a few thousand frames, and start to observe what specific lens charactistics you need for the type of shooting you do and for the type of output (prints? large or small? web?) that you do.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[matthijs]

<p>Listen to Dan.</p>

<p>(-:</p>

<p>Plus: enjoy the new cam. I recently got one (after using solely my 400D for nearly 3 years) and I like it very much. Especially the colors and the handling are impressive.</p>

<p>Utter sharpness is only achieved at ISO 100 but as long as you don't pixel-peep (look at full magnification) any ISO up to 2500 gives pretty pictures.<br>

(In this it is rather different than my 400D. Great sharpness is more easily achieved with the 400D however the 400D has less pixels so that's not completely fair ánd the 400D starts to get messy at ISO 800...)</p>

 

[philip_wilson]

<p>50mm F1.4 on a crop body is a good lens for portraits - if money is a concern then the 50m F1.8 is a good lens</p>

[mbkissel]

<p>Great sharpness is easily achieved with the 50D, too, Matthijs. The better the lens, the better the final result.</p>

<p>Joseph, the unfortunate reality is $300 doesn't get you a lot of choices in the Canon lineup. I'd probably second the suggestion to get the 50mm f1.8 if you mainly want portraits. However, G Dan Mitchell's suggestion for the 18-55 IS will give you more versatility for other subject matter. In particular, it will be marginally wide enough for some building shots and a good performer for a walk around lens.</p>

[bill_dewberry]

<p>Get the 50 1.4.</p>

[les]

<p>Get the 50/1.8 lens. Firstly - it is a good piece of glass. Secondly - when you find out that this does not fulfill all your needs - you will know then what other lens to get. In the meantime you will be enjoying nice sharp pictures without breaking the bank.</p>

[mark_pierlot]

<p>I'm with Philip on this one. The best "starter" lens is a normal (50mm) prime, because it forces you to think about all sorts parameters that a zoom washes over. </p>

<p>The EF 50/1.4 is an impressively sharp lens that's well suited for portraiture and other applications on the 50D, and is just within your budget.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Don't get the 50mm f/1/8 prime. Yesc it is not a bad lens. Yes, the price is very low.</p>

<p>But you have a cropped sensor camera body on which this is not a "normal" lens but a short telephoto. Now if you understand what that is and you know that this is what you want, fine - but otherwise it is a very unusual focal length choice. If you actually want a "normal... prime" for your camera it <em>would not</em> be a 50mm lens - it would be a 31mm lens or thereabouts.</p>

<p>If you really have no idea what sort of lens to get, slap the EFS 18-55mm image-stabilized lens on the camera - it is quite inexpensive (about $175), optically quite decent, and by shooting a few thousand frames with it you'll learn in concrete terms how different focal ranges work for you. You'll be in a much better position to make smart choices about more expensive lenses - and this includes the possibility that you may be quite content with this lens.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[yakim_peled1]

<p>

<p dir="ltr">Get the 18-55 IS, 55-250 IS and definitely add the 50/1.8. It will teach you the value of fast aperture and the pros and cons of a prime lens. This is the cheapest set I can recommend.</p>

<p dir="ltr"> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Happy shooting,</p>

<p dir="ltr">Yakim.</p>

</p>

[joseph_lacerda]

<p>hi, thank you all for your input. after reading online and here, i seen most places and people suggested the 50mm 1.8. i went to a local camera store and talked to the people there, told them what i wanted to do, and they suggested the 50mm 1.8 as well. yes, this is my first SLR camera. Ive owned quite a few point and shoot cameras but, this is COMPLETELY different. There are so many buttons and modes and what not that, well, its extremely confusing lol. i am happy with my lens and camera but i know it will take a long time to get the hang of. I just hope by july 9th I will be able to take semi decent photos. I plan on praticing several hours a day.. because July 9th-19th I will be in Tokyo :)</p>

[bueh]

<blockquote>

<p>I just hope by july 9th I will be able to take semi decent photos. I plan on praticing several hours a day.. because July 9th-19th I will be in Tokyo :)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I found a super-wide zoom lens (the Tokina AT-X 12-24mm in my case) and a fast telephoto (EF 100mm f/2 USM, and especially the EF 200mm f/2.8 L USM) my most used lenses in Tokyo. If this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip I'd buy the lenses second hand with the intention of selling them again after you return home (with no or only a little loss) if you cannot afford them.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>I'm sorry to hear that you went for the 50mm prime and nothing else. While there is a <em>slight</em> chance that your approach to photography is unusual enough that having nothing by a single portrait focal length prime with you on a trip to Tokyo will work, I am almost certain that this is <em>not</em> the best option for you and your situation.</p>

<p>I think you've been given a bum steer. (And, sorry, but advice from the camera store guys to buy the thing that you came in looking for is hardly, uh, foolproof.)</p>

<p>You may be unaware of the origin of the antiquated recommendation to "start with a 50mm normal prime." For you and others who may fall for this advice, here is a bit of background. Several decades ago many people shot 35mm film SLR cameras. At that time, the few available zoom lenses were either of very poor quality or very expensive... or both. Basically, getting a zoom lens was not a realistic option for beginning shooters.</p>

<p>With that in mind, when people got their first film SLR it was typical to start with a so-called "normal" lens, and that most often meant a prime in the 45mm to 55mm (or a bit either side of that) range. For this reason manufacturers generally produced one quite decent but very inexpensive prime that was in the 50mm range and had a maximum aperture in the f2 or f/1.8 range. The EF 50mm f/2.8 is a great example of this lens. It was precisely what many people wanted as their first "normal" prime. (My first SLR was a Minolta SRT101 with a 50mm lens, and I later owned a couple Pentax SLRs, one with a 50mm f/1.4 prime and another with a 45mm prime.)</p>

<p>(By the way, the recommendation to buy a 50mm prime as a starting lens was <em>not</em> <em>originally advice to avoid zooms</em> , per se. Remember that zooms weren't really an option. It <em>was</em> advice to buy one inexpensive but decent lens first, learn a bit about photography, and then decide if you needed/wanted more. The "buy one decent and inexpensive lens first" advice is good, but the persistent application of the "rule" about 50mm focal lengths and about primes is anachronistic and just plain illogical for modern crop sensor DSLR beginners living in a world of quite decent zooms.)</p>

<p>But you are not buying your camera 20-30 years ago, and you are not buying a 35mm film SLR. You are using a cropped sensor DSLR that has a sensor whose dimensions are significantly smaller than those of the 35mm film frame. <em>When you put the 50mm lens on your camera it does not function in the same way it functioned on a film SLR</em> . With your camera the 50mm lens provides the same angle of view that an 80mm lens provided "back in the day." The advice to put a 50mm lens on your camera is almost identical to advice to buy only a 80mm lens back then - and that would have been very, very rare advice, indeed. (There was a reasonable argument for buying a slightly shorter focal length as your first lens, but virtually never for the longer lens unless you were absolutely positive that your primary subject would be, say, studio portraits.)</p>

<p>If you accept the 35mm film era "buy a 50mm prime as your first lens" notion, <em>then you should not get a 50mm prime for your cropped sensor camera</em> . The focal length that will provide the same angle of view (and roughly the same functionality) on your camera is about 31mm - so a prime in the <em>28mm-35mm range</em> would be roughly equivalent to the 50mm lens.</p>

<p>(So, why to people keep recommending a 50mm prime? Habit? It is cheap and decent? They think everyone shoots portraits? Reflexive repetition of "rules" that applied in a different situation? I have no idea. I just wish they would stop it!)</p>

<p>And why not a zoom? Yes, yes, I know that Cartier-Bresson used a prime. But you are not CB. Today there are fine little inexpensive zooms that provide quite decent image quality and much more flexibility than a prime. I know that some folks will say that you should adopt the supplicant position of the freshman photo major and get a film camera with a single 50mm prime. But in the real world almost every person just getting interested in SLR/DSLR photography is going to learn faster and have a lot more fun with a lens like the EFS 18-55mm IS "kit lens" - and this sort of lens also fits with the "start with one decent lens and shoot before you buy more lenses" advice.</p>

<p>And, hey, if you really want to follow the 50mm discipline you can always set the the zoom ring to 50mm and not move it - it is easy enough to do. Heck, tape it there if you want. (But I won't tell anyone if you find yourself in a situation where 18mm will get a shot that 50mm won't and you furtively zoom back for one photograph and then quickly zoom back to 50mm and replace the tape. Really, it will be our secret...)</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Wish we could edit our own posts here...</p>

<p>In my previous message I wrote: "The EF 50mm <strong>f/2.8</strong> is a great example of this lens."</p>

<p>I made a typo. I meant to write: The EF 50mm <strong>f/1.8</strong> is a great example of this lens.</p>

[matthijs]

<p>Mark, the 70-200/4 IS should be good enough.</p>

<p>The rest is skill.</p>

[yakim_peled1]

<blockquote>

<p>Wish we could edit our own posts here...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We can, though it is just for 10 minutes.</p>

<p>Happy shooting,<br>

Yakim.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<blockquote>

<p>We can, though it is just for 10 minutes.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Long enough, I suppose, if you write a one-liner in a minute or less...</p>

<p>... and want to spend 9 minutes editing it. What I'm interested in is the ability of the original poster to edit his/her own words later on. There are plenty of good reasons for doing this.</p>

<p>Dan</p>