Canon DSLR Users: What lenses do you own?

[GTaudiophile]

I will be buying an EOS-20D soon. But for the life of me, I can't decide on a lens! What do you all use?

I want a pretty good (sharp, accurate, neutral) lens with both decent wide angle and telephoto.

Here are the ones I am looking at now:

Sigma 18-125 ($270)

-Best of both worlds: wide and telephoto
-Damn inexpensive
-Small and light
-But AF speed is slow
-Too good to be true?
-Reverse engineered Canon?

Canon EF 24-85 ($310)

-Decent mix of wide and tele, but 24 may not be wide enough on a 1.6 crop
-Small and light
-Good value if you get a good copy
-Build quality issues

Canon EF 28-135 IS ($410)

-It's got IS
-135mm is nice
-Large, heavy
-28mm wide enough on 1.6 crop?
-Getting expensive!

Canon EF-S 17-85 IS ($600)

-Wide with decent tele
-It's got IS
-Small, compact
-Limitations of EF-S mount
-Seeing lots of CA in posted examples
-Many agree its way too expensive for the quality you get
-$600 and not an L lens

 

[BaboonGuy]

get some badass L glass

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: BaboonGuy
get some badass L glass

I will...eventually...but I want to keep this initial purchase around $2K or less.

 

[Anubis]

what are the apature ranges on these lenses?

 

[edro]

Canon 50mm f1.8
Sigma APO 300mm Super Macro
Kit Lens

 

[randomlinh]

the sigma has quite a bit of vintaging at 18mm and wide open... From the samples I've seen, I did not like it. I have the 28-135 IS.. nice, but I'm still playing with it. I'm actually looking at the Sigma 18-50 2.8 DC EX... but it's $500 Might get the sigma 20mm 1.8, I need a wide lens. The new 17-85 is just too damned expensive, and slow (4-5.6). I also want a macro lens sometime, I don't really like the extention tubes I have.

And on 1.6x crop, I have found 28mm is definately not wide enough... but it really depends on what you're trying to shoot.

 

[Anubis]

a bunch of peopel in the canon forums on Dpreview like teh Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 its really nice and gives you fast wide-mid range and its only like 400-500$ or so, the Sigma 70-300 APO super macro 2 is great just a lil slow 4.5-5.6 for around 250

the Canon 70-200 f/4L is great as you most likely allready know dont know what it costs tho

 

[MazerRackham]

What is "CA" ?

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: MazerRackham
What is "CA" ?

Chromatic Aberation

 

[GTaudiophile]

Bump

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Anubis
what are the apature ranges on these lenses?

Go to BHphoto.com and use the search tool

 

[m2kewl]

70-300DO
70-200L IS
28-70L
17-40L

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Anubis
what are the apature ranges on these lenses?

Go to BHphoto.com and use the search tool

you know im way to lazy for that, 600 is a lot for a non L lens but sometims you gotta do that, the IS makes up for the slower ap range, ive bitten the bullet and paid that for Nikon glass that is not top of the line, non AF-S stuff 600 is better then 1200-1500 by far tho

if your gonna drop 600$ or so on a lens go with the 17-40 f/4L you can snag one for ~650 grey market or a USA used one for less

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Anubis
600 is a lot for a non L lens but sometims you gotta do that, the IS makes up for the slower ap range

The IS does somewhat make up for it I guess, but it's still so much... maybe the IS on the 28-135 is too old.. but of course, i'm still learning (albeit slowly)...

 

[GTaudiophile]

The 17-85 would best be priced right at $499 or about $100 lower than it is. It would then still be about $90 more than the 28-135 IS.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Bump!

 

[JulesMaximus]

18-125 isn't very wide on a digital. It equates to 28.8-200mm on the 20D. I am using a 28-135mm Canon IS lens and it takes excellent pictures on my 300D but I wish I had something wider. I'm thinking of picking up the Canon 17-40mm f4.0 lens. It would work well on my digital or my film camera but I need to save up some money first.

I have a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 lens but I'm going to sell it I think. It is friggin' huge and the autofocus is slow and noisy compared to the much more refined Canon lenses. Also, at the 70mm end of the zoom range the zoom ring gets really stiff and hard to turn. Oh, and it takes 82mm filters, did I mention that it's frickin huge? I'm not a big fan of Sigma glass.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
18-125 isn't very wide on a digital. It equates to 28.8-200mm on the 20D. I am using a 28-135mm Canon IS lens and it takes excellent pictures on my 300D but I wish I had something wider. I'm thinking of picking up the Canon 17-40mm f4.0 lens. It would work well on my digital or my film camera but I need to save up some money first.

I have a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 lens but I'm going to sell it I think. It is friggin' huge and the autofocus is slow and noisy compared to the much more refined Canon lenses. Also, at the 70mm end of the zoom range the zoom ring gets really stiff and hard to turn. Oh, and it takes 82mm filters, did I mention that it's frickin huge? I'm not a big fan of Sigma glass.

You can't get much wider than 17/18! The EFS 10-22 costs over $1K...and it's totally unproven.

 

[dartworth]

hmm