s4play

I know there are many camera buffs out here including some pro's so hopefully you guys can help me out a bit.

I'm looking to buy a 2nd lense (new or used don't matter so if anyone has lenses for sale, let me know)

Right now I've had my Canon 40d for a while now and been learning to shoot with the 28-135mm stock lense it came with. I find the lense is ok but it's not a very wide angle lense so I'm always having to back up quite a bit to do group photo's or shooting car pictures. I'm not skilled enough to carry a ton of lenses but I think I'm ready to invest in 2 items: A 2nd sharper/wider angle lense and a flash

So I've been reading a bit and narrowed it down to these 2 lense from Canon

1) Canon 17-40mm L F4 lense (found a used one for $525)

2) Canon 24-105mm F/4 IS L lense (found a used one for $925)


My 40d has a crop factor of 1.6 so the guy told me with my 28mm end x 1.6 = 44mm (what does this mean?)

He also suggested I look at the 10-22mm lense for a super sharp wide angle but is there any detriment to that?

Is the longer number (105mm) mean how close I can zoom as in telephoto? I never understood why some guys shoot with these large lenses that have a flare at the end?

What is a good flash to invest in for indoor shooting?


thanks for any advice,
rick

thejohnremus

Hey Rick,

Don't bother with the 24mm if you're looking to gain a wider angle. You won't see much difference between that and the 28mm you currently can shoot at.

the 10-22 would be nice I suppose... but that's really only if you're going to do a LOT of extreme wide angle shots. You'll have distortion when shooting at 10mm with 1.6 crop for objects close to the camera. Hell, I can shoot at 16mm on my 1.3 crop on my Mark III and still get some distortion.

You should also consider the 17-55mm lense. You already have something at will shoot at 135mm... so you may as well get a wider angle lense (that's also a 2.8) that you can use and have the speed as well.
If you're looking for that "all in one lense" you're going to sacrifice a lot when trying to find a huge range.

So, I would say keep the lense you have for telephoto shots (yes, zooming far away like you asked). And get something like the 17-55 for wider angle shots, indoor shooting, and automotive/architectural....
Keep in mind that that lense is a "S" lense... meaning that if you ever upgrade to the Mark series you can't use it because it won't fit the Mark series bodies


Hope that helps

Orthonormal

My dad just loaned me his Canon EF-S 17-85 macro IS lens. It seems like a pretty nice lens.

I think that the Canon EF-S 10-22m would cover exactly the range that you are missing. The review/test at Photozone indicates that the distortion is really mild, and really low at 14mm-22mm.

Personally I am waiting for the Tokina AT-X 116 (11-16mm f/2.8) to come back in stock. I'm willing to cope with a gap between 16mm and 28mm to get the better image quality of the Tokina. I don't really know for sure that I won't notice the lack, but a friend who is a photography buff assures me that it won't be a problem.

[QUOTE]My 40d has a crop factor of 1.6 so the guy told me with my 28mm end x 1.6 = 44mm

mmagic

trying to shoot wide angle with a L lens on a cropped body is a lost cause. you will never be able to get it as wide as a full frame body. so look towards the EF-S lenses. these are made for the cropped bodies and should serve you better. theyre also much more affordable than the Ls.

as for shooting indoors, you want a lens that has the lowest F number. the lower the number, the more light is let into the camera, and the faster you can set the shutter speed. as you know, speed = stability. the fastr the shutter speed, the less chances you have of a blurry picture.

Flash...i would suggest that you put this on the back burner because you are opening up a whole new can of worms there.

learn how to shoot with what you have first before throwing money at it. photography is one of those things where you can throw a ton of money at it and end up with shitty ass pictures as ive seen on the m3 forum recently. guy's shooting with a 1ds mark II and producing pictures that my neice can do with my old poloroid.

here is a site that i peruse occassionally that gives a fairly unbiased review of canon lenses along with sample pictures.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com

ps: if you are interested in learning how to use your camera, some friends and i will be setting up another "shooting day" where we help each other with techniques, tips, and advice. i can let you know when this happens again. offer is open to everyone interested.

Voodoo_S2K

I had to borrow a 17-40 the other weekend, and it make me really miss not having either of my IS lenses. I was so use to being able to shoot at 1/5" shutter, but that was impossible with the 17-40. I had to crank my ISO up to 800 to get a decently sharp picture. Spend the extra money on the 24-105.

thejohnremus

I forgot to mention a flash...


if you do decide to buy a strobe... you may as well spend the money and go with the 580EXII.... sure, it's the more expensive of the two Canon strobes... but, if you have a Canon camera, buy canon strobes... if you have a Nikon, you buy Nikon strobes.

Don't waste your money on other brands, they won't talk to your camera nearly as well.

And I do agree with "don't throw money at photography thinking it will make you better", however, if you buy a flash and focus on learning that... you'll learn it... if you buy a lense and focus on using that, you'll learn it.
It's when you try putting a couple things together that you don't know that will confuse the hell out of you


g/l and let me know if you need anything

macr88

Rick, you mentioned the fact that you have to walk further back. Have you ever not
been able to backup enough? If you do find yourself running out of room all the time
than a new lens is what you need otherwise walking is part of photography especially if
you shoot with fixed lenses (non zoom).

s4play

wow I really appreciate all this advice, I'm taking notes as I read through this thread!

I was at VF over the weekend and tried out the 17-40 lense at Ritz Camera. I usually shoot on the "auto" setting but quite honestly didn't notice the change that much. The lense does have a bit more wide angle shot.

Just remembered a simpe question, when most of you guys shoot for pics that you know will be posted on the net, do you shoot in RAW or jpg format? What resolution do you use? Maybe that is why I don't have super high res pics?

I will hold off on the flash purchase since I have much to learn before using that aspect.

After reading Vu's post plus the other's I'm going to do some more reading before I pull the trigger.

Appreciate those website links, will read through them in the next few days!


regards
rick

thejohnremus

shoot High JPG...

Don't bother with RAW until you understand more about photos. RAW is uncompressed images that take significantly more post processing and time spent after the shoot. It give you more flexibility with the image, but you have to understand what to do with it (or else you'll think the RAW un-touched image looks much worse than the JPG)

Voodoo_S2K

I shoot RAW most of the time, since I want the best quality image I can get, but it does require some work afterwards. I only shoot JPG when I need the larger buffer size.