The best camera for architectural renderings

photonius wrote:

lightwriter wrote:

ThrillaMozilla wrote:

lightwriter wrote:

That means you recommend using the kit lens and the 10-18 STM, is that right? I was trying to avoid using two lenses, but if that is the best path...

It all depends on what you want to do. You listed a lot of lenses, and they will all take pictures, but I have no idea why you selected them. You need to decide how wide you want your field of view to be.

If I were photographing real estate, I would want the capability offered by an ultra-wide lens, but that is not a general-purpose lens, and it won't do telephotos. But it is an optional extra. You probably wouldn't find it very good for general use, and you would probably want to change lenses if you use it. If you're happy with a phone, then maybe you don't want it or need it.

The kit lens is a general purpose lens, and they almost give it to you. If it were me, I wouldn't hesitate to get that. It will do everything your phone will do, plus a lot more.

You listed some lenses with very wide focal length ranges, like 18-135 or something. I don't know why you would need anything longer than an 18-55 mm kit lens, but you have to decide that. Besides, lenses with very wide focal length ranges tend not to be as sharp as lenses with narrow ranges.

I have no idea why you chose all those lenses you listed. Some of them are a little faster (for use in darkness) than the kit lenses, but that's not likely to be a helpful feature, as you would have trouble getting everything in focus with the lens aperture wide open.

My advice in a nutshell: You said you want a flip screen, and you seem to want something cheap. Get a Canon T5i (whatever they call that in Europe) or Nikon D5200 with a kit lens. If you think you want to also try an ultra-wide lens, get the Canon with the Canon 10-18 lens; the Nikon equivalent is much more expensive, although there are some mid-priced third-party ultra-wide lenses for Nikon. I don't know anything about the other brands you mentioned. These are both top-notch quality and less expensive than most.

If you really, really don't want to use an ultra wide lens and don't want to change lens, get a bridge camera. I don't know anything about those.

The 18-135 lens that I listed I agree, it doesn't really make sense for my purpose. The other lenses that I listed, like the Tokina AT-X PRO 12-24mm F4 (IF), were an effort to see if I could use only one lens; I didn't choose them because they're faster.

However, maybe a canon or nikon with kit lens and a UWA might be the answer. That, or the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ, maybe.

Olympus has a crop factor of 2x. Also, the image ratio is 4:3, not 3:2, in case you need wider horizontal views (which means the horizontal angle of view is actually a bit narrower than the 2x crop factor suggests). The 12mm is thus only a 24 (FF equivalent) lens. This does a good job (better than the 29mm FF eqv. of the 18mm - xx lenses) , but may still not be wide enough in a few cases.

That's my dilemma. Right now I'm divided between the Canon 100D with kit lens + 10-18 STM and the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ.

I live in Portugal, and there's a store that's doing a discount of 20% in all cameras until monday. The Canon 100D with kit lens costs 360€ and the 10-18 STM is 230€, making a total of 590€. I can buy the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ used for 400€, but every single one that I encounter is located in Lisbon, 300km from where I live.

What you wrote makes perfect sense (the fact that the 24mm may not be wide enough enough in a few cases). However, there's the question of the hassle of changing lenses (although I think I'll be using the 10-18mm more, If I go that route).

I know that this is a Canon forum, but if you were me (with the notion that I'll be using the camera exclusively to take exterior architectural photos in order to composite 3d buildings), what would you choose?