Any other lenses to start with for a first time DSLR owner?

Why not shoot with what you're getting and determine where gaps exist?

I will see. Since I am new to the DSLR area, not sure if I would know what I was missing.

;-)

Archivist said:

I am getting the EF-S 18-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS USM & EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM with my 77D. What are some other lenses that you all suggest might be good to have as well?

I keep hearing about the "nifty fifty" one. But I see two different ones and prices for it.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

Will the EF-S 18-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS USM be good enough to start with and then later go on to other lenses?

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Welcome to a fantastic hobby! I have loved photography for decades, I have learned from photography things which guided my career in technology, helped me become creative, meet wonderful friends, express myself... it's really fun.

It's not yet time for you to get a new lens. Stick with the 18-135mm. That 55-250mm is only if you go out to shoot a sporting event like soccer, football or baseball, or if you want to shoot pictures of birds or animals at the zoo. 99% likely you're going to be using that 18-135mm. Keep it on your camera. Don't put a filter on it; they will reduce image quality.

After 35 years of photography, here is my equipment advice to you: After 35 years, I still sign up for photography seminars delivered by professional photographers, and they are BY FAR the best investment in improving my photography. There are a million different ways these guys teach. Usually it's just a lecture hall with slides, but other times there are walkaround photo tours. The walkaround tours cost more because they can't pack in 100 people.

Photography is all aperture, shutter speed, focus, composition... forget about new equipment. You have a camera that's like the Space Shuttle. It's got unlimited capability just as it is. It is possible for you to keep that camera and lens for ten years, and never buy anything else.

Now I'll talk a little about equipment, but remember something: Using VanGogh's paints doesn't make you VanGogh. You should really just use the equipment you have for a year or so until you develop a working style and learn what works for you and what doesn't. You have a LOT to learn.

My rule for buying new equipment (which, admittedly, I've broken...) is to wait until you're out taking shots and you realize yourself what's deficient in your lens or camera; "Where am I hitting the wall?"

There are a few lens areas where you're deficient. The first is that you have no wide-angle (yet). Canon makes a nice 10-18mm STM lens which complements your 18-135mm. I go ultra-wide maybe 5% of the time. So it's great when you need it but you can take so many shots without it.

The second area, which you've noted, is that you don't have a "prime" lens. It's important to understand what a lens like that can do before you buy one. Most people think those lenses will help with indoor shooting, because of their faster aperture. WRONG. They don't know what they're talking about. This is why the seminars are so useful. Photography is about one thing, and one thing only: Light. Your camera captures light. If you don't have any light, the camera won't fix the problem. The photo will look bad. Don't buy a fast lens to give you better light. Buy lighting equipment for that.

The benefit of the fast aperture lenses, like the f/1.4 and the f/1.8, are that with a fast aperture and/or longer focal length, there is very little depth of field. This capability often comes into play when photographing people, because it isolates them from the background; they stand out and the eye is drawn to the subject, and distracting background elements such as windows or lights disappear into a warm, creamy-looking blur.

Personally, I don't like any of Canon's 50mm lenses, and here is why:

f/1.8: Not quite fast enough to always defocus the background; and it's a low-cost design

f/1.4: Beautiful quality, better aperture blades improve the out of focus look. But it's notoriously poor focusing unless you use only LiveView mode. I have this lens and hate it, even though I've taken my best shots with it. Fix this lens, Canon!!!

f/1.2: Absolutely fantastic for portraits, but very expensive ($1,000) and its focus performance is reputed to be very slow, so you miss shots.

Many photographers are buying Sigma's 50mm f/1.4 lens instead. But I purchased Canon's 85mm f/1.8 lens, and I really like it. It's cheap, small, it focuses very accurately, and the longer focal length makes the background blur effect come out very well. Canon also makes an 85mm f/1.2, which is reportedly much better, but that lens is $1,900. Not gonna happen. BUT, I shoot full frame, and with your crop sensor camera, an 85mm lens is mostly going to be for subjects some distance away, such as at concerts, or for head-size portraits.

You have that 18-135mm lens. Use it and when you have shots you like, look at their "EXIF" info to figure out what you did right. What was the focal length, the aperture, the shutter speed? Maybe 85mm is your favorite place. If you're always shooting 18mm, then maybe an even wider lens, or a sharper, wide angle prime lens will be better.

The answer to your question is that you should shoot, learn from it, take some seminars, and then buy the paintbrush that's right for you, not somebody else. When you have that understanding, we will be able to help you pick out the good lenses from the bad ones.

Thanks for all the information. There is A LOT to take in at first. Will have to go out and try out my camera. See what I can do with it.

I keep hearing about Sigma. Are they a "better" lens than others? I see how quickly the prices get $$$.

Archivist said:

Thanks for all the information. There is A LOT to take in at first. Will have to go out and try out my camera. See what I can do with it.

I keep hearing about Sigma. Are they a "better" lens than others? I see how quickly the prices get $$$.

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TRUST ME... take seminars or classes. Even after 35 years, taking a seminar from a pro is just mind-blowing. It shuts out the technology and opens up the art. DO IT!

I completely agree, but ... )))

55-250 is more useful than you think. It is almost macro lens and it's stabilisation is fabulous for it's price. It work with extension rings and IS works insanely nice.

That's one of the few best buy lenses.

The other ones?

50/1.8 STM

85/1.8 USM or 100/2.0

EFM 22/2.0

Sigma 105/2.8 OS

Sigma 150-600C

There could be more of them.

That lens combination will be fine to start. I recommend not buying anything else immediately but using that combination to start. You might find later that you struggle to get sharp images in low light (which may be technique or lens limitations). want to see a wider view than you can get with the 18mm, or want to get close than you can with 255mm.

To answer two specific questions:

1. The difference between the two 50mm lenses is that the STM version is better for video (smoother/quieter focusing), and the f1.4 USM version is better for subject isolation and low light because of the extra stop going from f1.8 to f1.4. In practice, the f1.8 STM version is a very good lens and for most enough a better choice than the more expensive f1.4 version.

2. Sigma lenses. On the whole, Canon lenses are better than Sigma, with Sigma lenses being cheaper for a specific lens. Sigma lenses are also more variable so you are more likely to get a bad one. However, Sigma do make some great lenses - but I recommend you worry about this later once you have a better idea of what you need.

Jeff Peterman said:

That lens combination will be fine to start. I recommend not buying anything else immediately but using that combination to start. You might find later that you struggle to get sharp images in low light (which may be technique or lens limitations). want to see a wider view than you can get with the 18mm, or want to get close than you can with 255mm.

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That's the most reasonable response. I would add 50/1.8 STM because is so cheap that you loose almost nothing is you sell it.

Will have to see where I have classes, etc near me.

I forgot to ask. Are used lenses as good as new ones? If they are, what should I look for when buying one?

Archivist said:

I forgot to ask. Are used lenses as good as new ones? If they are, what should I look for when buying one?

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Mostly they are.

Just buy a kit and 50/1.8 STM.

All the finesse will come later or never.

Understanding the logic of the system is more important than some minute technical detail.

As said, those two lenses will be good to learn with and see what type of shooting you enjoy the most. One item that may be extremely useful to you would be a good tripod or monopod. Have fun, enjoy and you'll learn a lot as you go!

Your kit with the two lenses covers most focal length ranges. I agree with the posts that suggest working with the two lenses. Take a few hundred -- or thousand -- photos and decide what you are missing. Is it low light capability? Is it the ability to get really close to things like flowers? Is it the ability to squeeze more stuff into the frame because you can't back up far enough? Or maybe you need an external flash because the fbuilt in flash isn't strong enough. Or maybe you need a tripod because you want to make time exposures of fireworks, or flowing water, etc. Only you will know what you enjoy photographing and where your kit falls short. Please come back here in a thousand images or so, and we can give you more relevant advice.

Once I have used the new camera for a while, then I just might know what I am "missing". Need to go around to different places and try it out and see what I do with it.

Anyone care to see what I come up with as a beginner?

I'll echo the advice of others.

These two lenses are fine for starting out. Don't spend any more money until you figure out what you are using the lenses for and what you want to specialize in.

The nifty fifty Canon lens (EF 50mm f/1.8 STM) will be better for available light photography and for limiting the depth of field but the focal length limits it to only a limited type of portraiture - full length to waist up. Use it for any tighter crop portrait and you will see noticeable extension distortion.

Here is an extreme example of both extension distortion and keystone distortion.



A shallow depth of field is a double edged sword. Yes, it can be used to throw the background out of focus but it is easy to reduce the depth of field on the subject to the point that while one eye is in focus the other eye or the tip of the nose is out of focus. A small depth of field also means lots of rejected out of focus shots.

If you feel the need to buy anything else get a good TTL flash. Personally I don't recommend a Canon flash. Yes, they are reliable but the system is more expensive and limited than the systems of other brands, especially Phottix and Godox which have integrated both hot-shoe flash and studio strobes into a system can can be controlled by a single RF system.

TTL flash is great for on-camera run and gun photography when the subject to flash distance is always changing. With TTL most of your images will have an exposure that is good enough for you to fix it in post. The lighting will be hard and flat - basically boring but it will let you capture images of your family and friends being active.

Learn to bounce your on-camera flash and you will see a dramatic improvement in your flash pictures.

Make sure any flash you buy has a simple Manual Flash Power mode since this is the mode you want an off-camera flash to work in.

Add a light stand, umbrella adapter, umbrella, and a set of RF triggers and you can move the flash off-camera for a quantum increase in the quality of your flash pictures. Less than $100 for this stuff will open up a whole new world of photography for you.

--
Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.

Archivist said:

I am getting the EF-S 18-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS USM & EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM with my 77D. What are some other lenses that you all suggest might be good to have as well?

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Those are two excellent zoom lenses. Certain users look down on "kit lenses" but I find them to be excellent among the more expensive "L" lenses that I have.

Spend time using those two in the next few months to determine your preferences relative to focal lengths. Then you can spend money on a few prime lenses.

What are considered "prime lenses"?

All of this DSLR stuff it quite new to me.

Archivist said:

What are considered "prime lenses"?

All of this DSLR stuff it quite new to me.

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Ah, you'd better pay up.

Basically (emphasis "basically"), there are two kinds of lenses:

• prime lens that supports a single, fixed focal length, e.g. 50mm
• zoom lens that allows the user to select any focal length from a certain range, e.g. 18-135mm -- when using such a lens, you can set the lens to shoot a wide-angle scene at, say, 19mm or to move closer to shoot a person's face at, say, 120mm.

I have the feeling you're going to ask about aperture, shutter speed, ISO sensitivity...

Are used Prime lenses as good as new ones? Cheaper, but do they work as well?

I could ask others to pay for the $$ ones for me to use. :-D