Lower quality zoom lens or cropping higher quality wide angle?

Started 5 months ago | Questions thread
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HappyHiker
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Lower quality zoom lens or cropping higher quality wide angle?
5 months ago

Hello everyone - first time posting here so apologies if there's a better place for this question.

It's a simple enough question - and probably a stupid one -  but I'd love it if someone more experienced than I am can advise!

I've got a 7D with three lenses: the Canon 15-85mm, the Canon 55-250mm and the Canon 1.4 50mm prime. I'm hoping to take some photographs of fireworks on New Year's Eve, as I got some fairly spectacular ones before using a borrowed Sigma 70-300mm on an old 450D a few years ago. However, my vantage point for the firework display is quite a long way off - previously I've got great pictures from the same spot at around 130mm, so I'm trying to work out which lens would be my best choice for Monday night. My tripod is nice and sturdy, so I'm not worried about that.

The 15-85mm has a much higher IQ than the 55-250mm (which seems to produce 'flatter' and less punchy pictures in comparison), but obviously it won't zoom as far. Am I better off using the 55-250 and zooming to approximately 130mm, or should I use the 15-85 at full zoom and just crop the final images? I'd obviously like to keep my final images as large as possible while maintaining image quality. The 7D produces pretty big pictures to begin with - but since you only really get one shot at photographing fireworks I'd like to get it right!

Any advice would be hugely appreciated! Many thanks in advance.

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