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One lens, just one, for a beginner...

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Reybabes

Reybabes

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Hi - my daughter has a chance to get into the Canon line (which I'm not too familiar with) at her school. She'll likely get an XTi and she asked me today which lens she should get. As she is just learning, my old fashioned sensibilities steered me toward a Sigma 30/1.4 or Canon 50/1.8 (that's how her dad learned). My practical side steered me toward the 18-55 kit lens, thinking she can decide which other or replacement lens(es) she'll need over time. My invest-for-the-long-haul side made me think that she (ok, her parents) should spring for more so that she can own the lens for the long haul (maybe a Tamron 17-50 or Canon 17-85, if it's any good, or something comparable). She has done a lot of photography with a Minolta 5D (and its kit lens) and is considering minoring in photography. The Minolta needs repair work and my advice is that she's better off getting out of the Minolta/Sony line at this point.

Any advice or recommendations? Thanks.
 
I would suggest a fast, "normal" prime. So the sigma sounds good, but i'm not sure about focusing issues I've heard around the boards.

I know there's another thread somewhere about zooms making you lazy etc. But I do think that for someone learning the basics of photography, a prime makes you think a bit harder about your composition, which can be a good thing in most cases.

Also, a zoom isn't going to be as bright. So much fun can be had using available light but that stops being fun when you can't squeak enough shutter speed out and your pics are all blurry :)

Anyway, that's my two cents + GST.
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Reybabes said:
Any advice or recommendations? Thanks.
Click to expand...
From what I have read/seen of a school photography class, you want the kit lens.

Usually they have a fact sheet with a list of recommended cameras and "the" required lens or maybe the required focal range. I would search for that fact sheet.

In addition, the canon 50mm f/1.8 is the best $70 you can spend. The limited depth of field, good low light performance, and good focal length for people pictures make it a must have for anyone learning photography.

Cheers to the new photography student. I wish someone had given me a camera rather than a shot gun when I was 14. I would have a heck of a lot of fantastic wildlife pictures now, rather than the memory of countless lizards, blue jays, and squirrels exploding...

Oh, well... it is never to late to learn.



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Sounds like a nice dilemma. The kit lens is fine, but for learning purposes, I would favor a lens with a legitimate depth of field scale. Because of the crop factor a 35 mm prime would be roughly equivalent to a 50 mm normal lens. Which of these currently have depth of field scales, I don't know.

My recommendation is to actually get two lenses: the kit lens, which is quite cheap as part of a "kit" and is capable of wonderful pictures and a 35 mm prime with depth of field markers.

You could also run into some problems if she minors in photography. Many curricula are still film based. If this is the case, neither the kit lens nor the 17-85 IS will fit a canon film body.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Jim
http://www.pbase.com/jcassatt
 
Both your old fashioned sensibilities and your practical side make a lot of sense. If I were you, given how cheap the two lenses are, I probably would buy them both. Of course, in a year or two she will want an UW, an all-purpose walk-around lens, and a telephoto, so start saving now!

Jerry
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Thanks all for the input. Very interesting... and some divergent views. My leaning is the kit lens and maybe the 50/1.8. I'm sure she'll have plenty of opportunity to add/spend if she's interested in this. Her Plan A is teaching and Plan B is photography. They might just go together well...

Now if I had to do it all over again...
 
Someone who's "done a lot of photography with a Minolta 5D" and considering minoring in photography is probably not a real "beginner"....

I started with a mechanical film SLR as well (the auto-nothing Nikon F Photomic), so I know the "start with a 50/1.8 and go from there" philosophy. However, you have to keep in mind that most people of her generation "grew up" with zooms. Even as of a decade ago, most consumer film cameras sold had a 38-70mm (or 38-100mm) zoom lens. Certainly, most consumer non-DSLR digital cameras have a 3x zoom (usually 35-105 equivalent).

Given her previous exposure to the Minolta 5D with its kit lens, I'm guessing she is used to seeing the world in the mild-wide-angle to mild-telephoto perspective. She is also probably not used to seeing shallow-DOF photos. Photography is a lot about SEEING the shot even before one raises the camera to one's eye, so I think she'll be better off being forced to see the world differently from what she's used to.

For example, every photography book talks about "use large apertures to isolate the subject when taking a portrait". Well, you just can't "isolate the subject" very well when the maximum aperture is F5.6 at 55mm with most kit lens. And with non-DSLR digital cameras, even F2.8 has tons of DOF.

That's why I think she'll MUCH better off with TWO primes, one wide and one long. Alas, there's no cheap wide prime for the Rebels, so you'll have to settle for the 24/2.8. Couple that with the 50/1.8 (or better yet, the 85/1.8), and you'll end up spending not much more than the 17-85.

With the 85/1.8 (or the 50/1.8, albeit not as effectively), she'll be able do:
1. portraits with shallower DOF than the 18-50/2.8, and definitely the 17-85,
2. compressed-perspective landscapes,
3. many indoor sports like basketball or volleyball, possibly without flash.

With the 24/2.8, she'll be able to do:
1. the usual wide-angle (albeit not super-wide) landscapes,
2. street photography,
3. indoor available-light shots of groups,
4. exaggerated-perspective close-up shots (the 24/2.8 focuses to 1 ft).

Economically, prime lenses keep their values well, and are in stable demand. (Unlike the kit lens which has little second-hand demand, since newcomers often buy their entry-level DSLR with a kit lens included already.) The 85/1.8 and 24/2.8 both have 58mm threads, so filters can be shared. (Should she want to add telephoto later, the 70-300IS also takes 58mm.) 58mm filters are also much cheaper than 67mm ones required by the 17-85, or 72mm ones required by the Sigma 18-50/2.8.

--

If you've posted more messages here than you've taken photos, do everyone the favour and stop calling yourself a photographer.....
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Very solid advice Retro. Compelling. Her experience with the 5D was largely point and shoot. She got a lot of nice photos and won two photo contests... one in her high school and one in a New England regional photo contest. She has a good eye, but so far has had little interest in learning much about things like depth of field and panning. She's had absolutely zero interest in actually learning how to use the camera. But... she realizes that to go further, she needs to invest in learning. The two prime suggestion is a good one. I'll look at the Canon primes. Seem pretty reasonably priced. You recommend the 28 over the 35? Thanks.
 
Jim Cassatt said:
Sounds like a nice dilemma. The kit lens is fine, but for learning
purposes, I would favor a lens with a legitimate depth of field
scale. Because of the crop factor a 35 mm prime would be roughly
equivalent to a 50 mm normal lens. Which of these currently have
depth of field scales, I don't know.
Click to expand...
Jim, while I agree with you that two inexpensive lenses are probably better than one $400-500 lens (like the 18-50/2.8 or 17-85IS), I don't agree with the emphasis on DOF scales.

Manual-focus primes of yore, whose focus arcs (and thus the distance markers) spreaded out over 90-130 degrees, allowed 2-3 sets of DOF scales to be placed and still be easily readable. Modern AF lenses often have very short focus arc (mininum-distance to infinity in 30-40 degrees) that DOF scales are all bunched together -- if the manufacturers bother including them at all. (The Sigma 30/1.4 doesn't have them, and the Canon 50/1.8 certainly doesn't have them.)

Moreover, in the digital age, it's often easier/faster to take the photo then check DOF on review, than trying to use DOF scales or DOF preview.
Jim Cassatt said:
You could also run into some problems if she minors in photography.
Many curricula are still film based. If this is the case, neither
the kit lens nor the 17-85 IS will fit a canon film body.
Click to expand...
Another good point, and another reason to consider the two-prime solution I suggested. With film bodies, the 24/2.8 becomes a real wide-angle, and the 85/1.8 is still a great portrait/indoor sports lens.

--

If you've posted more messages here than you've taken photos, do everyone the favour and stop calling yourself a photographer.....
http://retroblader.smugmug.com/
 
As you might already know, Canon is releasing a new version of the 18-55 kit lens with IS, which is supposed to provide 4 stops of hand-holdability advantage.

Alternatively the 17-85 IS is already available and offers decent range and IQ.

--
Sean
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The craftsman who wishes to do his work well must first sharpen his tools.... Confucius
 
Reybabes said:
She's had absolutely zero interest in actually learning how to use the
camera. But... she realizes that to go further, she needs to invest
in learning.
Click to expand...
Lucky her. A good eye is much harder to acquire than technical skills. However, as you said, to get even better, some understanding of basic principles is needed.

Like I said, one reason to go with the two-prime solution is to force her to move her feet (and in the process, hopefully learning about "perspective changes", since angle-of-view is fixed with primes).

Most people who grew up with zooms use zoom to change angle of view. However, since they don't move their feet, the camera-to-subject distance remains unchanged, so perspective also remains unchanged. In fact, many so-called photographers never learned the importance of perspective either -- just look at all the "who needs a UWA when you can do stitch-together panoramas" arguments you see here.
Reybabes said:
The two prime suggestion is a good one. I'll look at the Canon
primes. Seem pretty reasonably priced. You recommend the 28
over the 35? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Canon doesn't have inexpensive wide-angle primes for crop bodies. On the XT/XTi, a 35mm lens "looks like" a 56mm on a film body, and while the 28mm "looks like" a 45mm. Neither is wide enough for indoor group shots or wide-perspective landscapes. (In fact, most people would consider 45-56mm on a film body to be in the "normal" range, not wide-angle.)

The 20/2.8 is better (looks like a 32mm on film bodies), but at $420, it won't leave much budget for the telephoto prime. That's why in my earlier recommendation, I settled on the 24/2.8, which is a good compromise between cost ($280) and suitability to the task (looking like a 38mm on film body, which is at least mild wide-angle).

I guess if you want a better wide angle, you can opt for the 20/2.8 + 50/1.8 combo (about $500), but then, your filter costs will be higher: 72mm for the 20/2.8, and not interchangeable with the 52mm for the 50/1.8.

So, I still think the 24/2.8 + 85/1.8 is the best combo.

--

If you've posted more messages here than you've taken photos, do everyone the favour and stop calling yourself a photographer.....
http://retroblader.smugmug.com/
 
Reybabes said:
Retro - rather than the two primes you suggest, what about the Tamron
28-75/2.8? Decent range (not quite 24), fast, good reviews.
Click to expand...
The Tamron is an excellent beginner lens, especially on a film body. 28mm is decent wide-angle, 75mm is decent for portraits, the constant F2.8 is handy for low-light and for shallow DOF, and most importantly, the lens is very sharp from what I heard.

However, once again, on the XT/XTi, the 28mm becomes a "normal-ish" 45mm, leaving her without any wide-angle capabilities. She will quickly get frustrated with indoor shots, wide landscapes, etc. (Yes, you can use the kit lens for wide angle, but there is too much overlap between these two lenses -- not good use of your money.)

In terms of "fast", F2.8 at 75mm (looking like 120mm on the XT/XTi) is good, but this (28-75/2.8 + 18-55/3.5-5.6) combo is limited by the F3.5 of the kit lens at the wide-angle end. In comparison, my originally suggested combo (24/2.8 + 85/1.8) is faster on both ends: F2.8 at the wide end, and F1.8 at the tele end.

Moreover, as you probably read already, the Tamron 28-75/2.8 is not very fast focusing, so if she wants to do any indoor sports she'll be very unhappy. In contrast, the 85/1.8 is one of the fastest focusing Canon lenses.

--

If you've posted more messages here than you've taken photos, do everyone the favour and stop calling yourself a photographer.....
http://retroblader.smugmug.com/
 
Mostly Mumbo Jumbo.

The kit lens includes the following 'primes'... 18, 20, 24, 28, 35, 50 and more all at a low, low price. The image quality is decent in good light or with an external flash.
RetroBlader said:
Like I said, one reason to go with the two-prime solution is to force
her to move her feet (and in the process, hopefully learning about
"perspective changes", since angle-of-view is fixed with primes).

Most people who grew up with zooms use zoom to change angle of view.
However, since they don't move their feet, the camera-to-subject
distance remains unchanged, so perspective also remains unchanged.
Click to expand...
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