Canon body + lens. Advice?

nanoboy

nanoboy

Well-Known Member
Hi folks,

I am after some advice from the serious photographers lurking.

I want to buy a Canon EOS 600D DSLR for my wife for Valentine's day, and I wanted some advice on a good starter lens.

I want something that has really good zoom (similar to out 14X optical zoom on our point and shoot), and can still take portrait shots, and give her the chance to experiment with learning about shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc. Ideally I did not want a twin lens kit.

Any advice on a good multipurpose Canon lens to start with?
Cheers!
 
We mostly take wildlife, landscape, and zoo pics, by the way. Hardly any social shots.
 
You will not get 14X zoom on an SLR lens. The standard (translation - affordable) telephoto zoom is a 70-300mm. Canon makes several versions of this - at least four currently, ranging in price from around three hundred dollars US to around one thousand five hundred US. With lenses, you really do get what you pay for. However, their second from the bottom lens, which is around five or six hundred US, has image stabilization and should be sharp enough for everyone except the most discerning professionals. Or, if you own a nice car, just sell it and buy the new 600mm f/4 lens which is around twelve thousand US. :D

(I have worked in the photo industry at a professional lab for nearly two decades and am a Canon user myself, so if you want to discuss this in-depth feel free to PM me).
 
Arizona Docent said:
You will not get 14X zoom on an SLR lens. The standard (translation - affordable) telephoto zoom is a 70-300mm. Canon makes several versions of this - at least four currently, ranging in price from around three hundred dollars US to around one thousand five hundred US. With lenses, you really do get what you pay for. However, their second from the bottom lens, which is around five or six hundred US, has image stabilization and should be sharp enough for everyone except the most discerning professionals. Or, if you own a nice car, just sell it and buy the new 600mm f/4 lens which is around twelve thousand US. :D

(I have worked in the photo industry at a professional lab for nearly two decades and am a Canon user myself, so if you want to discuss this in-depth feel free to PM me).
Click to expand...

Cheers for the advice.

Funny that you mentioned that particular lens, because in lieu of professional advice, this seemed like a good buy: Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM Zoom Lens

Agree?
Would this be able to zoom a long way away, and take those cool photos where the subject is in focus but the background is blurred?
(Yeah, I am an amateur. :D But we want to take our photography to the next level, and reading books on the subject without an actual DSLR to experiment on doesn't make sense to me. So I really wanted a lens and body for about $1,000-ish to get started.)
 
nanoboy said:
Cheers for the advice.

Funny that you mentioned that particular lens, because in lieu of professional advice, this seemed like a good buy
Click to expand...

I currently use this lens, it's a great lens for wildlife but not great for portraits.
 
I haven't used the EOS 600D, but I have a 550D and had no problems with it. I have the lens you have chosen and found it to be very good for what I want to do (which is mainly wildlife photography). And that is an excellent price, I paid $900 for mine 5 or 6 years ago. However, you won't be able to get landscapes with it, not at 70mm. You would either need to buy a 28-300mm Zoom like this Canon Lens 28-300mm EF f/3.5-5.6L IS USM - Digital Camera Warehouse

or do what I do and carry around a little compact in your pocket for the landscapes and scenery (I use the IXUS 220). The compacts also can take pictures for photostitching, a feature the DSLR's don't have (as far as I'm aware).

:p

Hix
 
To get the effect of an animal filling the frame with a blurred background you need a telephoto lens and a large aperture. The zoom lens we are talking about will have a maximum aperture of f/5.6 at the 300mm setting, as will any affordable lens in this zoom range. If you are relatively close to the animal it will give you what you want. (Tip - when you are taking the photos, set the camera dial to AV for Aperture Value and turn the top control dial until the number gets to 5.6). If the animal is farther away, the only way to blur the background a lot (except in computer later) is to have a larger aperture lens. In the 300mm range, you will likely be talking about a fixed lens, not a zoom lens (meaning 300mm is the only length it has). The 300 f/4, what I use, is pricey but not outrageous - I think around one thousand three hundred US. But it is not a zoom, so less practical. The one with an even larger aperture, 300 f/2.8, is several thousand dollars and is the size of a bazooka, so not realistic unless you are a working pro photographer. Sigma makes a 120-300 f/2.8 zoom that gets good reviews, but it is also big and costs around three thousand two hundred US.

So all that rambling to say, yes, for an amateur photographer with a reasonable budget, that lens is a good choice.
 
Hi folks,

Thanks for all the replies so far. I think some of you are on crack if you think that I can afford those expenses lenses though. Haha. When I quit my day-job and start following David Attenborough around, then maybe I might buy those high-end lenses.

For now, I am after something multi-purpose, that will not break the bank, and would be a good introductory lens.

Although I mentioned the lens that I was researching, let's put that aside for the moment - we all seem to agree that it's great for wildlife shots. Is there another Canon lens that you can recommend that has a relatively good zoom, isn't too bad at portraits (re: Reevesie), isn't too bad at landscapes (re: Hix) and isn't too expensive (Re: AD)? I am after advice on a few options under about $600 - not necessarily a stamp of approval on a lens I found via a Google search. :)
 
I have had the 70-300 for a few years, working on a 300D and with a brand new 550D. The lens is ideal for a amateur zoo visitor, general photo's. For anything closer I make do with the standard 18-55mm lens. Must give them both the thumbs up.

For something to do both, your looking at a 30mm - ???, it might be a little more than you want to spend.

It's a lovely idea though, to buy your wife such gift.
 
I really should focus on doing more work rather than reading up about animals and cameras. :)

I forgot to mention that my wife is nuts about taking close-up shots of flowers. I saw this lens, and it looks like it just might give me the zoom, portraiture, landscape, wildlife, and macro that I am after, and at $214, looks to be a steal of a deal.
Sigma Lens 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG Macro - Digital Camera Warehouse Australia
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG OS Lens, digital cameras, digital photography, photography, digital slr, camera recommendation, price comparison, photographic companies, camera companies, digital camera best prices,

So, what's wrong with this lens? What am I missing?
 
It is NOT a macro lens. Lens manufacturers routinely lie about this, and I am surprised no one has sued them yet. Real macros are always (as far as I know) single focal length lenses, NOT zoom lenses. Zoom lenses do not focus close enough, but many manufacturers throw that label on because they use the term too loosely and all they are saying is this lens focuses a little closer than the previous version (or a little closer than other lenses in this zoom range). Still, you may find it is close enough that your spouse can do the flowers adequately. (If you are really serious about it you need to get the non-zoom macro, but then you have another lens to carry around, which you do not want I am sure).

The only potential problem with Sigma is that they reverse engineer to make the Canon mount instead of buying the rights from Canon. A new Sigma lens should work fine with the camera you get, but if you upgrade to a newer model camera in a few years there is a chance this lens will no longer work with it. This has happened A LOT over the years with Sigma. Also, according to online photo forums, Sigma quality control is very hit and miss, so you may get a great lens or you may get a lemon that has to be sent to the factory for warranty repair.

As for someone here saying the 70-300 lens is not so good for portraits, I am curious why not? Telephoto lenses are the ideal portrait lenses, so why would you say that? Is it because it does not have a large enough aperture?
 
Thanks for the advice, AD. I was looking at my 2012 Wildlife Photography diary from the Natural History Museum London, and under each photo is listed the camera type, lens, aperture, ISO etc. I noticed that quite a few of those award winning pics were taken with Sigma lenses, so I thought that maybe they were ok. Your advice, however, seems sound if they do indeed reverse engineer their lenses.

For $214, maybe it's worth taking the risk, just to get a feel for a DSLR and to carry along on those walks in the parks when we might be taking a pic of an orchid in one instant, and a rosella in another?

(Hey, I am not fussed either way - I just don't want a disappointed recipient when I say "you need another lens for that - wait until your birthday". :))
 
Last year I bought a Canon 60D with an 18 to 200mm zoom. I took it to Kakadu and it did everything I wanted from broad panoramic landscapes to shots of birds and wallabies (including a sea eagle in flight), to a goanna that crossed my path to close-up insects and flowers. Overall I was very happy with the shots. I also think this is an ideal lens for zoos, allowing me to pull it back for broad shots of enclosures, and then focusing right in on the animals.

As far as the 70 to 300mm lens goes, the 70mm will be too narrow for landscape shots and if you are "serious" about wildlife I don't think that 300mm is enough, you should be up around 500mm. Sigma make a 150 to 500mm zoom that is reasonable cost for what it is, around $1000. Just a thought.

If you do go for a Canon camera there is another lens you should buy, it is the Canon 50mm f1.8. It is under $150 so won't break the bank and is great for low light and night shots.
 
I have the same 300mm lens that Hix has - and while I got some great shots on a 6 week trip through Patagonia (and Hix generally takes great photos), I always found it frustrating when taking photos of anything which is moving.

The reason being that the focus on the 70-300mm lens is rather slow and tends to "hunt" somewhat (ie can never quite lock on and so zooms in and out continuously, hunting for the focus). This is especially bad when taking photos of birds in flight (or small, skittish birds), or pets and children.

I have since upgraded to the Canon 100-400mm zoom, which has a much faster zoom, gives a much nicer "bokeh" (which is the photography term used to describe the blurred background of a photo). Unfortunately, this is a very expensive lens. I also wouldn't recommend using it on a 600D - overkill somewhat.

If you want landscape photos - you want a nice wide angle on your lens, as previously mentioned, 70mm is far too narrow - aim for 24mm or wider. Canon do a nice 10-22mm EF-S lens which I believe will work on the 600D, which takes quite nice photos - I used it extensively in Patagonia for landscapes, and it also works well for architecture (although not particularly fast, so not as good for low light conditions).

Sigma have been around a long time and I believe their lenses are generally very good - although I've only owned some of their cheaper lenses from back in my pre-DSLR days, so I can't comment from experience on their better lenses.

At our ZooChat meetup at Symbio Wildlife Park last year, we came across a girl taking photos with the Sigma 150-500mm lens that MRJ mentioned - she was getting some very nice shots from it. For the price, it really is a bargain.

I don't use my Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM Zoom Lens anymore - so if you are interested in a used one, let me know.
 
The EOS 600D doesn't have a full-frame sensor, so a 70-300mm lens is effectively 112-480mm on that body. In other words, for any sort of landscape or just general scene photography, it'll be really impractical.

Even at f/5.6, an effective 480mm will only give a narrow depth of field and considerable background blur. You might struggle eliminating the wire of enclosures however, unless you can get particularly close to it.

Personally, I'd suggest the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM as a good, general-purpose starter lens. It'd be 45-216mm on the 600D.
 
Sim said:
The reason being that the focus on the 70-300mm lens is rather slow and tends to "hunt" somewhat (ie can never quite lock on and so zooms in and out continuously, hunting for the focus).
Click to expand...
How much it does that will depend largely on the AF of the body though.
 
Seeing as you want macro too, I'll just add that the IXUS does some good macro work and you can get to within a centimetre of your subject. Good for flowers, but not for anything that might want to move away like insects, reptiles or small mammals. The only problem I have with it is when using the flash - it overexposes macro shots.

Otherwise, I would recommend the Canon 100mm macro lens.

:p

Hix
 
nanoboy said:
Cheers for the advice.

Funny that you mentioned that particular lens, because in lieu of professional advice, this seemed like a good buy: Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM Zoom Lens

Agree?
Would this be able to zoom a long way away, and take those cool photos where the subject is in focus but the background is blurred?
(Yeah, I am an amateur. :D But we want to take our photography to the next level, and reading books on the subject without an actual DSLR to experiment on doesn't make sense to me. So I really wanted a lens and body for about $1,000-ish to get started.)
Click to expand...
This is the lens I use on all of my zoo photos. I also have an 18-200mm lens, but it's been awhile since I've used that one. I mainly used it when I went to Sea World and was taking photos at the Shamu Close-Up viewing window. But the 70-300mm pretty much stays on my camera now and I use either my Canon 20SX IS point and shoot or my Kodak C180 if I need to get closer to an object or for landscape. Both also have video and my Canon 40d doesn't so I'll use the point & shoots for that as well.
 
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Folks, thanks for the advice. So much to think about.
Pay-day is today, to let's see what I end up buying soon.
 
Sim said:
I have since upgraded to the Canon 100-400mm zoom, which has a much faster zoom, gives a much nicer "bokeh" (which is the photography term used to describe the blurred background of a photo).

I don't use my Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM Zoom Lens anymore - so if you are interested in a used one, let me know.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw 'bokeh' on a photography website in reference to a close-up of a flower. I thought 'bokeh' was the type of flower. :o Thanks for clearing that up.

Still contemplating what to buy. I wanted everything to be shiny and new and gift wrapped, so I probably will not go for a second hand lens in the first instance. :D
 
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