What lens should I buy apart from 18x55mm

Evil Nemesis wrote:

Hi, I just got a Canon EOS 1100D AKA Rebel T3 (it came with 18x55mm lens) as my first DSLR. Now what lens should I buy for it? Is 75x300mm 3rd gen good enough for budget and experience?

Is that lens good enough for travel / landscape / zoom and night photography ?

Thanks

Hello EN,

Well, to cope with all those situations you mentioned - travel, landscape, zoom (by which you must mean telephoto, far distance) and night (low-light) - then, no, the 75x300mm is not a good choice on your 1100D, as it could ONLY do telephoto 'well'.

[Notice: if you don't want to read all my waffle below (as i do go on!) then skip to the end paragraph for my humble opinion conclusion ]

If you're looking for a telephoto lens to compliment your 18-55mm then, as mentioned by others, the Canon 55-250mm (the II version or STM) tele-lens is ideal as it's fairly compact & light with a good zoom range and image quality. You can go longer but then it starts to get heavier. Your 18-55 can do the other tasks adequatly but not brilliantly - a tripod would help a lot for the landscapes and night shots.

If you want one lens to do-it-all then you find it most difficult to find such a lens as it doesn't exist! But there are some that get close, but all will be heavier and larger then your 18-55mm by varying degrees but you can still travel with them - and u wouldn't need your 18-55mm anymore. IMHO the Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM is an ideal one-lens-only travel lens as it has a good enough zoom length (even if it's not very long) - but more useful is the 15mm wide end which is good for landscapes and general use in many situations. People may also recommend the Canon 18-135mm STM lens as it has a longer zoom, but for me i never really got on with the feel of this lens and it's longer size than the 15-85 as i always wanted wider field-of-view.

If you still want even longer zoom and have only one lens then a "super-zoom" lens is the what you may need to replace your little 18-55 kit lens with. Superzooms start a little wide and go very long zoom and are usually of a good compact size and weight for travel but do sacrifice some IQ but will be on par with your kit lens and none will be ideal for night photography especially at the long end due to small apertures. Such lenses include Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, the Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM (there is now an 18-300mm version of this) and the Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD LD Macro (there is now a 16-300mm version of this lens which looks VERY appealing i must say!).

If you want to do night photography / low-light photography then the best lens to use is a "fast" prime (non-zoom wide aperture) lens as they are the best way to get the most of the low light into the camera, and for your APS-C sensored camera the better focal lengths to look for IMHO are the 24mm and 28mm lenses. The new Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens is the minimum to go for in terms of aperture size, and it's great for general use too and not too expensive the other one to look at is the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM which has a nice wide aperture but is a bit more expensive. You can look at the new Canon EF 50mm 1.8 STM as it's cheap but you may find the tight field-of-view annoyingly restrictive, same with the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake.

Since you seem like a beginner with limited knowledge and money and wants to cover as many photographic situations as possible when on holiday my personal opinion would be to get one of the super-zoom lenses mentioned above - such as the Tamron 16-300mm, and one prime lens - such as the Canon 24mm pancake. Once you've played more with your EOS1100 and such lenses and saved some more money you can in the future decide which area of photography you'd like to improve more on and which lenses would better suit you. Have fun whatever you decide to go with!