Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 6/11/2002
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As long as they are for Canon AF they should work.
Brands that make good lenses for Canon are Canon (doh), Tokina and Sigma. Tamron, Cosina, Vivitar also make lenses, but generally not as good (though I have 2 Cosinas that are quite nice for the price I am looking at replacing them over time with something better).
With non-Canon lenses, be sure to ask for a lens for Canon, as those brands also make lenses to fit other brands of Cameras.
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Richard Lee
(K=317) - Comment Date 6/11/2002
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your best bet, is always to stick with a cannon lens, they will work the best with your auto focus camera, however, there are soem very good aftermaket lenses out there. Stay away from Quateray lenses. they are cheap aftermaket lenses that do not auto focus well, and do not communicate with the camera's well. basically, mine made a really expensive paper weight. sigma makes a really nice 50-500mm zoom lens. if you got that one that might very well be the only lens you need for most of your shooting. I wish they had it available when I was buying lenses. My Camera's are all Nikon's, what I like most about Nikon, is any lens that I have will interchange with any nikon camera auto focus or no. I don't know if canon will do the same. good luck on finding one. PS. look for a zoom lens with a wide range like the 50-500sigma, carrying all those lenses around gets to be cumbersome and like me you will eventually miss a good shot because you were trying to change lenses at the time. I guess that's why I have four cameras and three tripods. Dude one camera,one wide range tele is the way to go, trust me.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 6/11/2002
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so you have the 50-500 Sigma? How do you like it?
I always advise people to stay away from superzooms. Rather get 2 or 3 to cover the range, as the compromises in those extreme ranges are too great to make them usefull at the extremities. While this is especially valid for the 28-200 and 28-300 zooms out there, it holds to others as well.
My dreamrange:
17-35 f/2.8 (or similar)
28-70 f/2.8 (filled now)
70-200 f/2.8 (or 80-200). Hopefully by the end of the year
170-500
Add a second body and you're all set. Optics are a lot better than a single long zoom, and you won't have to hold the enormous weight a fast long zoom would have.
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geoff walker
(K=77) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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I THINK THE LENSES YOU NEED DEPEND ON THE TYPE OF PHOTOGRAPHS YOU TAKE, FOR EXAMPLE WHY WOULD A PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER NEED A MACRO LENS? OR SOMEONE WHO PHOTOGRAPHS BIRDS NEED A 18MM LENS. MY WORK IS QUITE GENERAL, SO I HAVE A 28MM FOR LANDSCAPES, A 35-80 FOR GENERAL WORK,AND A 70-300 THE TOP END IS SUITABLE FOR BIRDS OR ISOLATING SUBJECTS WHILE THE 70-135 RANGE IS GOOD FOR PORTRAITS. EVENTUALLY I WOULD LIKE A 28-300 FOR PHOTOGRAPHING WEDDINGS, IT CAN BE QUITE A PAIN CHANGING LENSES EVERY FEW MINUTES WHEN YOU HAVE ONLY 30MINS TO COMPLETE THE JOB
GEOFF
HTTP://WWW.geocities.com/galwal2000/index.HTML
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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Please turn off the capslock when posting Geoff.
You're right that the lenses people need depend on what they do. All I wanted to demonstrate is that zooms with a very long zoomrange are optically inferior to those with a shorter range.
It's not for nothing that no such zooms exist in the high end offerings of any manufacturer.
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Richard Lee
(K=317) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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Jeroen, No I do not own the sigma 50-500mm. I was allowed to use one for two weeks free of charge though. (they were trying to get me to buy one). It is a little tricky to get used to. but optically imfirior (can't spell today) No, I didn't have any problems with that. What I did have a problem with was the price, I couldn't justify spending 450.00 on a lens that I really didn't need. as I stated I have four camera's, A nikon fe 2:fe2's and an n90. I have a 35-80 mm zoom a fast 50mm a 70-210mm zoom a 1000mm zoom and a 2x tele converter a 100mm portrait lens, and a 28mm wide for shooting landscape. I was tempted to buy the 50-500 but I couldn't justify it, having it loaned to me made me feel a little obligated. but my wife took care of that.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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OK, thanks. I've heard conflicting stories about it.
More interested in the 170-500 myself, might even be able to afford it some day :)
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Brianne Hamel
(K=0) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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thanks guys. you helped me out. now all i need to do is convice my husband that i need another lens. all i have is the 28-80mm that came with the camera. we all have to start from somewhere, i guess...
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Nigel Smith
(K=3834) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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Husbands are easy to convince!
You really need to access what sort of use you want to put a telephoto lens to and to weigh up your expectations. I personally would never buy a 50-500, I bet it weighs a tonne, and has an max aperture as ugly. Probably miss heaps of shots while your looking at it sitting on the ground cause you can't be stuffed carrying it anymore, not to mention a tripod/monopod to be able to take a decent pic with it.
Back to the question...
3rd Party manufacturers (ie Sigma, Tokina, etc) make lenses for Canon's. Everywhere I have seen this question asked, the reply's have been "buy the Canon" Then it comes down to how much do you want to spend (or more accurately, can you afford) since there are several to choose from. What are your expectations, quality wise? What speed film do you expect to be able to use with it (ie 100asa or 1600asa)? I'm guessing the 75-300 one would suit you, but there's lots of things to weigh up!
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 6/12/2002
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I would never tell you to get the Canon (or Nikon, or Minolta, or (fill in your camerabrand here)).
For the same price 3rd party lenses are better. It's only when looking at the top of each brand that the Canon/... lenses are better but you pay a lot for that.
For example, I recently purchased a Tokina 28-70 f/2.6-2.6 for ?333,00. The Nikon equivalent is a 28-80 f/2.8 which would have cost me ?1849. The equivalent in price Nikon offers is the lens I have which is a 28-80 f/3.5-5.6.
The Tokina is all metal and glass construction, professional build with good coatings, the same priced Nikon if all plastic with plastic lens elements and far more flaky. Obviously a massproduced consumer lens instead of a lens aimed at advanced amateurs and professionals.
Had I listened to the voices that tell to always buy Nikon lenses for a Nikon camera I would still be stuck with that lens instead of the far superior one I now have, not being able to afford the better Nikon. In fact, I'd have only that one lens, and not a full range of lenses as I do today which give me quite reasonable results I would never have had with only the single Nikkor 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 AFD.
So it's all a matter of budget. If you can afford to (and are willing to) pay for the high-end Canon lenses those are indeed the best for your camera.
If you cannot, the high-end 3rd party lenses (not talking about the low-end 3rd party lenses, except Sigma who is also a camera maker) are better than equivalently priced Canons with the same focal length/range.
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Petros Stamatakos
(K=12101) - Comment Date 6/13/2002
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Jeroen... Your must be dreaming... Although third party lenses serve their purpose, they cannot be compared to the real deal... And yes, I'm stupid, so don't bother to convince me otherwise... I've ran my own tests... Canon lenses run circles around the 3rd party lenses...
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Joe Blow
(K=1918) - Comment Date 6/14/2002
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Brianne,
You have stated that you are a beginner. I think its wise, before you drop a lot of money into your equipment right away, to start out with a "cheaper" lens. A 3rd party lens is fine for a beginner to learn on, take good photos with, and not break the bank and as Jeron has stated some are very fine quality lenses. I had a Canon as my first camera with a 28-80mm lens to start with. The lens was a Canon and was average quality at best (and cost $150), but it got me going. If you decide you like photography, then make the investment towards the upper end equipment. Have fun.
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Brianne Hamel
(K=0) - Comment Date 6/15/2002
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thank you for all your help. as john suggested, since i am a beginner i think i'll go for a third party lens. just no quantaray, right? now the ?? is which 3rd party brand.... thanks guys. happy picture taking!!
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Terrence Kent
(K=7023) - Comment Date 6/15/2002
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Unfortunately you need to do alot of research, as you can see from the various responses no one agrees completely with anyone else on who makes what that's worth owning. I've used several excellent 3rd party lenses from Tokina (3), but I'm not going to endorse every lens they make. I may anger alot of people by saying so, but I've never been happy with any of the sigma lenses I've owned (2 "pro" line offerings) - let's not get into that though, like everyone else I may be so obsessed with the equipment the images never get any attention heh. (BTW "Quantaray is Sigma, relabeled. Take a look at images of the lenses and the specs/prices, it's no big secret.) Every manufacturer (including Nikon, Canon, Etc etc etc, trust me)makes (or has another company produce and then relabels for distribution) terrible lenses, and great ones. If it costs nothing and gives you an incredible range of focal lengths (like a 28-200, 28-300, etc) chances are good some sacrifices had to be made in the process. I'm not the first person here to cover that issue tho. Other infamous focal lengths under 200$ almost no one is happy with are the 28-80's that John mentioned, I can second his experience. I'm beginning to think no such thing as an "excellent" 70-300mm ish lens exists, maybe some ok ones though. (Let's see how many people I can offend here, shall we? Haha) I'd have to say reading user reviews online is a waste of time, someone else's standards are not going to be the same as yours, many people don't care about the results the lens will deliver when an image is enlarged to 8x10 and beyond, or wouldn't recognize poor results anyway, so you need to go with more than "Jim in Norway with 50 yrs of experience"'s opinion. About as close as you'll get to objective info on lenses is www.photodo.com. Many ppl call them quacks, the info is ridiculously technical aside from the numerical rating system, it's a start anyway.
Questions to ask yourself:
1. What focal lengths do I need? - I would have no practical use for something like a 50-500mm lens, myself. What kind of images do you want to create, some lenses make certain types of images much, much easier to produce, others are really more the territory of someone obsessed with that end product, like macro lenses, or super telephotos, super wides, u get the idea.
2. What can I afford? This is a no brainer. If nothing else I'll mention I've never used a poor 50mm lens, and great ones can be had for about 100$ from any manufacturer.
Anyway, do thine research, don't buy until you've considered the merits carefully. Or, buy the 50mm lens, haha.
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Chad Naujoks
(K=1242) - Comment Date 6/17/2002
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Just thought I would put in my 2 cents. I bought a 28-200 Sigma Aspherical Macro lens for my Canon (Elan) and it has treated me very well, it is quiet, it focuses fast it is fast enough for the price (3.5-5.6) and the pictures come out very nice every time (unless I screw up something, not the lens 8-) ) This is not an expensive lense (150-200) and great quality from what I can tell. Get a 2X and you are all set. The macro is only down to about 1.5 feet, but at 200 that is pretty good. You can always get the EF25 for about 150$ and bring that distance down.
Like I said just my 2 cents.
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Richard Lee
(K=317) - Comment Date 6/17/2002
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I feel like we're overwhelming you with information, so let me offer you one more sugesstion which will save you some money over a wide range telephoto. Consider a 70-210 Zoom. This lens is a very popular lens therefore the price will be quite reasonable. and then get a 2X teleconverter. This will give you almost as much range as a 50-500mm. 70mm without the tele up to 420mm with. that should give you as much range as you will ever need unless you get into something specialized where you need a specialized lens. Now that we've got you overwhelmed good luck on your decision. hope we havent discouaged you.
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Brianne Hamel
(K=0) - Comment Date 6/25/2002
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Thank you, all!! I appreciate your responding. No, I'm not discouraged at all! Happy picture taking!
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![Photograph By Nelson Moore [Kes] -](http://thumbs.imageopolis.com/images/6/0/0/5/6005/1537290-tn.jpg "Photograph By Nelson Moore [Kes] -")
