Call me crazy, but only a month after buying my Canon 28-105mm lens, I am thinking of an upgrade. The sharpness, focus speed, and everything with this lens is superb, apart from not be wide enough. I am finding that I am often going back to my 18-55mm USM kit lens for most of my photo shooting.
Of course, being a cheap-o kit lens, the 18-55mm front rotates, making it more difficult to use polarizing filters. Not only that, but the barrel itself wobbles a hell of a lot, making auto-to-manual focus switching a pane.
So, my lens options:
- Canon EF 17-40mm f4 L
This is just LUSH. Its L-glass, which means it is weather and dust sealed to a certain extent. It doesn’t quite have the reach of the 18-55mm, but does go 1mm less on the wide. The lens is "tack" sharp and generally awesome. - Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS
This is another great lens, although doesn’t compare on build quality with the L lens above. It has a small aperture, but does include 3-stage Image Stabilizing. I’ve read reviews that the images have a lot of distortion and other issues when open wide at 17mm - Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS
The ultimate lens? Constant f2.8 and 3 stage Image Stabilizing, surely? Its pricey though, at over £150 more than the L lens above, and it still doesn’t include the superior build quality of the L lens. Reviews say this is on-par, if not better, than L glass.
So, what am I going to buy? This is been a hard one for me to decide, but since owning a Digital SLR I’ve always looked up at L glass and people who own them, even if non-L glass is better.
So, for me, I think its going to have to be the 17-40mm f4 L lens. L glass also holds its value a lot, so if I decide to sell it and upgrade further (knowing me – likely!), then at least I won’t loose too much money on it.
Why does it have to be such an expensive hobby?
It doesn’t.
Like any hobby it can be as cheap or as expensive as you like.
When it becomes more serious than a hobby then yes, it’s gonna get expensive.
My ideal (realistic) setup is a 5D (£1700 ish) with a wide to mid as above, the 70-200 f2.8 L IS USM (about £1300) and something long at around 300mm +.
That doesn’t include filters, memory cards etc. I already have the tripod and the studio gear.
If you were talking stupid money then I’d be looking at Hasselblad digital back medium format with an array of Carl Zeiss lenses and the PC to support it. 50 odd grand there!
I read somewhere that medium format is equiv to about 50 million pixels!
Thats beyond my knowledge!
My ideal realistic setup? 1DsMk2, with a few L’s, including the 70-200 f2.8 L IS, of course. Oh, and the 50mm f1.0 L, imagine the DoF on that beast
We can dream!
Actually, I’d rather get the 30d or 5d, instead of the 1d. Its just too large!
You lot are never happy, My dream setup is either a Canon 350d with some lenses which i dont know anything about or a nikon d50 or something similar, If I had that i would be happy.
Oh and a iMac core duo for editing video and images.