The glass is everything, it is as simple as that. In the days of film cameras, it was sometimes said that the camera is just a light tight box and the lens is everything. Things have not changed in the digital era. The lens is what makes the image. The finest sensor can't do a thing about a bad image. (A bad sensor can, of course, wreck everything).
Ponder the irony of an expensive digital SLR with a bargain lens mounted on it. Mid-range digital SLR cameras (such as the Canon 20D, 30D, 40D series) are often sold with an inexpensive "kit lens". This is in order to keep the price point low for buyers who are shopping for a complete camera (and who are probably looking at two numbers: megapixels and total cost). Good advice would be to buy your camera body and first lens as independent purchases.
If you have decided you want a digital SLR, most likely it is because you want access to a wide spectrum of quality lenses (at least it should be). If you make the choice right you are likely to upgrade your camera along the way, and still retain your arsenal of lenses. It is all about the glass. If you are thinking about something other than Nikon or Canon, take a look at their lens offerings (and what people say about them in unbiased reviews), then take a look at what Canon and Nikon have to offer.
I will only talk about the Canon EOS lenses, since I have a Canon 20D and that is what I use and have experience with. I will take the liberty of talking about lenses that I do not have, but in those cases will just be relaying information I have picked up elsewhere. Much of that "elsewhere" information comes from the following two sources:
Here are some words for the wise:
The zoom versus prime debate pops up now and then. Years back zooms were in virtually every case inferior to primes -- in optical quality and in mechanical reliability. These days, good zooms are virually the equal of the best primes. The convenience of a zoom can mean being able to get a photo. And with digital camera, the risk of getting junk on the sensor is reduced by the fact you don't need to change lenses as much. Zooms are definitely not created equal and if you are going to go with zooms, it pays (and you will pay) to get good ones. In this day and age, the big advantage of prime lenses is that they are often very fast. They are also light and sharp; and possibly less expensive, just not as versatile.
And here is a freebee: IS stand for image stabilization. Canon puts this in some of their lenses, and it is a servo system that eliminates image motion due to camera vibration. In a nutshell it lets you shoot handheld, in situations where you would otherwise have to either use a tripod or get blurred shots. It gives you maybe 2 stops worth of shutter speed. This deserves some explanation, since I don't know how to say this in just one sentence. With a non-IS lens, the usual rule is that you can hand hold to the reciprocal of the shutter speed. So, with a 50mm lens, you can hand hold with shutter speeds as slow as 1/60. With IS you could handhold with shutter speeds as slow as 1/15.
S-series lenses are lenses designed exclusively for 1.6 crop cameras such as the 20D, 30D, 40D, and the rebel series. They have a white square instead of a red dot to line the lens up when mounting it on the camera. You cannot use them on a full frame (or 1.3 crop) camera. There is a metal tab that will keep you from mounting them on such a camera. If you are clever and file or grind this tab off, you may be able to mount them, but it is likely that the first time you take a photo you will cause terrible damage to the mirror in the camera. The rear element of these lenses projects farther into the camera body that non-S lenses. So don't do this.
Finally, the L-series lens designation. According to Canon, the L stands for "luxury". How about that! The L lenses are rugged (often weather sealed to match the weather sealing of the professional 1D series bodies). They often include UD glass elements and/or aspheric lens elements. (In simple talk, expensive pieces of glass that allow highly corrected and/or fast lens designs that would not otherwise be possible). They are often heavy. These are professional lenses. They are expensive, sometimes amazingly so.
A non-unity crop factor makes lenses "seem longer", i.e. a shot taken with 50mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera "looks like" what you would get with an 80mm lens on a full frame camera. Note however that the focal length of the lens has NOT changed (despite what some folks claim). A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens! Period! End of Story. The field of view changes, but not the focal length, and this distinction is important.
Sometimes, but not often, I do wish for something wider. (and the 10-18 lens (or the 10-22 S lens if you can find a bargain) is the answer to this, on a 1.6 crop camera anyway; the other answer is a full frame camera). The 16-35mm f/2.8 is an alternative to the 17-40 if you really want f/2.8 and are willing to pay for it (it is twice the price of the 17-40). If you want a wide lens on a 1.6 crop camera, look at the Canon 10-18 lens. Incidently, I am told that the 16-35 is just as prone to flare as the 17-40.
This comes with the EW-83E hood, which is useless (more or less) on a 1.6 crop camera, but save this for when you get a 10-22 S lens). What you want to do is go out and buy yourself a EW-83D hood (intended for the 24mm f/1.4L) as recommended by David Burren. He says that the newer EW-83J (intended for the EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS USM) is even better!
The 17-40 is weather sealed, but the weather sealing must be completed by mounting a UV filter on the lens! The lens is "front vented" like the 16-35 and both require filters as part of the weather sealing.
This lens is weather sealed without the addition of a filter.
I had feared that on a 1.6 crop camera this lens would be a tad long; being equivalent to a 110-320 zoom on full frame. It turned out to be wonderful. It is a big heavy lens, but it does a wonderful job.
There are also 3 other versions of this lens. First, the 70-200 f/4 for about $600; at half the price of the f2.8 and significantly less weight, this is a real gem. I heard rumors that this lens was discontinued, but it looks like it is still available. Then there are image stabilized versions of both the f/2.8 and the f/4 for $1100 and $1700 respectively, as you see fit.
This lens is not fully weather sealed. The IS version is, which really annoys some people. It kind of annoys me actually. If you check a 17-40 and a 24-70 you will find the rubber seal around the outside of the lens mount, and you will also find that it is lacking on this lens.
A recent update: do not buy this lens, buy the Canon 10-18 lens instead. The 10-18 is about half the price and offers image stabilization. The image quality with the 10-18 is at least as good, or so they say.
This lens came out in 2004, and I bought it when I had my Canon 20D and before the 10-18 was available. I hesitated quite a while before buying it. The first issue was the price (over $600, which is a lot of money for a non-L lens). The second is that it is yet another S-series lens that I won't be able to use on a full frame camera. Reviews are excellent, and it is indeed possible to get too hung up on the L-lens thing. A good way to look at it is that this lens has glass in the L-lens league, but just lacks the weather sealing. (This lens does have a UD glass element, and 3 aspherical elements, so optically it sounds a lot like an L lens). Canon may never put the L designation on an S lens, since they won't fit on the 1D "professional" bodies; nonetheless this lens is quite well made. Uses 77mm filters, which is nice.
As usual, it doesn't come with a hood, but as luck would have it, I had previously bought the 17-40 L lens, and the EW-83E lens that comes with that lens is the thing you want. So once I cound where I had tossed it, I was good to go.
As far as the S-series thing, it is such a great lens, that you should
be able to readily sell it, if you ever did decide to entirely migrate
to the full-frame world. I don't see myself doing that soon, if ever.
Even if I did get a full frame camera, why get rid of the 1.6 crop.
It nicely answers the question of "how do you get wide with a 1.6 crop camera".
I see essentially no distortion, even at 10mm, and very little flare, an
amazing lens. Also, it looks like it will give me a use for the otherwise
useless lens hood (the EW-83E) that came with my 17-40 L, if I can ever find
that thing.
Here is a nice review of the 10-22:
10-22mm EF-S
Canon also has an expensive 180mm L-series macro. I can't justify the expense, and some people say if you are serious about that lens, you should look at the Sigma 180mm macro. For this, see my macro photography section.
The 24mm lens seems to be almost ideal for landscape photography. In my old days shooting film, I had a 28mm lens and used it much more than the "standard 50" that came with the camera, and I often wished for a bit wider, thinking that 24mm would be ideal.
Every millimeter makes quite a difference at the "short end". For some time now I have been shooting with the Canon 17-40L lens on a 1.6 crop camera (which gives a field of view equivalent to a 27.2 mm lens on a full frame camera, not much different from my old friend, the 28mm lens.
Now that I have a full frame camera, I am rethinking my lenses, and even pondering the addition of a 24mm prime lens. Here are my thoughts:
There is the f/1.0 L series lens at $2750.00, this is apparently no longer in production, and is something of a legend. Slow focusing and heavy.
Then there is the f/1.2 L-series at $1360.00. I was at first inclined to compare this to the legendary 85mm F/1.2L, and I was even more enthusiastic when I considered that a 50mm lens on my 1.6 crop camera would have a perspective like a 80mm lens -- just the thing for portraits! This thinking was hasty and the bubble was burst after reading some reviews. The lenses on either side of this one (the 85mm f/1.2L and the 35mm f/1.4) are gems -- this one is not up to that status. My vote is to wait till Canon does a redesign, if they ever do. There are a lot of complaints on review sites about this lens having focus problems, and I found this bit of information intriguing:
According to Japanese user web sites, this lens has the following problem with auto-focusing. Some users have complained to Canon. They have acknowledged this problem but claim it is a "design feature". The spherical aberration of this lens when focused to close distances is apparently large (according to Canon, this is because this lens, unlike the 85 mm/F1.2, has no floating element). Due to this spherical aberration, the focus shifts at different aperature stops. So while autofocusing works perfectly at F1.2, the image goes out of focus when other aperature settings are used. The only way to fix this is to manually focus, WHILE stopping down using the preview button. There were speculations in these user web sites as to how this problem could be solved: either the lens design has to be changed to minimize the spherical abberation, or the lens focus algorithium has to be charged to compenstate for this focus shift depending on the F-setting.Apart from the focus issues, this lens is optically wonderful. (Well, it also has some chromatic aberration problems also, but these may not be significant on a narrow crop camera). This is a lot of money to spend on a lens with a major problem like this. It does offer speed, bokeh, and a clarity beyond that of the f/1.4. Sharpness is another thing though, some reviews criticise it (and the f/1.0) as not being as sharp as their slower (and less expensive) brothers. (If that doesn't prove that sharpness isn't everything, I don't know what does.)
Some people have no problem with the 50mm f/1.2, see the review by W.L. Castleman. He looks at (and tests) all of the 50mm lenses. He concludes that the f/1.0 does NOT outperform the f/1.4 lens! In a review prior to the debut of the f/1.2 he chose the f/1.4 as the finest of the 50mm lineup, but did mention that the f/1.8 he had was amazingly sharp (and light!). Also see the review by Thomas Hawk, who concludes that the f/1.4 is the smart choice.
There are two f/1.8 50mm lenses. The original was a bit nicer; it had a metal camera mount and a focus distance scale. It is no longer available new as far as I know, unless you get lucky and find one that has been languishing on the shelf somewhere. The series II version of the f/1.8 is available new for less than $100.00 and even though people complain to no end about its build quality, it sure takes pictures. And having a lens this fast can be very handy, even liberating, especially if you like shooting without flash.
In the middle, you have the f/1.4 USM lens, which has a great reputation. It is quiet, optically fast, and well made. People say that opened up wider than f/2.0 it looses some sharpness (but is this in comparison to stellar performance at f/2.0 and beyond). I also read complaints about flare and veiling (lack of contrast) wide open. (Also, the USM mechanism is not a ring-type design.) Chromatic Aberration is LESS than the f/1.2L and it is exceptionally sharp from f/4 to f/8. Recommended as one of the best performers for the money in the Canon lineup! The price is near $300, but alongside the bargain priced f/1.8 you have to ask: is it worth 3 times the money?
Don't forget that a 50mm lens on a 1.6 crop factor camera (like my 20D) is going to seem more like an 85mm lens and this may not make you happy, unless you want the portrait lens field of view you are going to get. I got the 35mm f/2.0 lens, because I wanted a reasonably fast lens with a field of view like a 50mm "normal" lens. I had played with the 50 f/1.8 and found it a little "tight" for a lot of things. The 35mm is just fine in those same situations.
And there is one more, the f/2.5 compact macro. This is a well loved lens that is nicely built (and priced at $230.00). You may want to compare it to the 60mm S-series f/2.8 lens. The 50mm goes to 1:0.5, whereas the 60mm goes to 1:1, and that is something to think about.
The 35mm f/1.4 is another legend. Get it if you have the $1100 to spend.
Here is a list of the gear people I know actually have and are using:
JM has:
JM says an alternative to what he bought would be the 350D body with the L series 17-40 zoom ($679). He points out that lens hoods must be purchased separately (which is an irritation).
JG has:
JG also says some handy things are a T-adapter (get this at Starizona), and a right angle viewscreen adapter, as well as the infrared "pod" that replaces a cable release. A computer link is very handy for making time lapse movies, as well as doing test images to check focus (this might be essential for microphotography).
DH has a 1D Mark-2n body (8.4 megapixel, 1.3 crop factor) and a number of fine lenses. His biggest piece of advice is not to hesitate to spend money on glass. Good glass will make more of a difference than anything else. That being said, he endorsed the 20D simply on the basis of "build quality".
Here are some other tidbits of information from our short interview:
JW has (purchased from Sunshine Camera):
AK has:
TT likes:
Uncle Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org