Trying to decide on a new lens...

[restlesscourage]

Hi all, I'm new here. :) Ok, so here's the deal. I have an XT that came with the 18-55mm kit lens. My particular copy of the kit lens seems to actually be pretty good...I've gotten some fantastic pictures with it. But I'm ready to graduate to something new. I also recently got an old 35mm Rebel with a couple of very old lenses (a 35-80mm and a 75-300mm), both of which work fine, but I'd like something that could basically replace both the 18-55mm and the 35-80mm that I could use on both cameras (so, no EF-S lenses...the 17-55mm EF-S looks fantastic, but I can't afford it anyway).


Ideally, I'd love to get the 24-105mm IS L lens, but I don't have that kind of money, and honestly, until I get around to making money with my camera, I don't think I can justify spending that much money on a lens, beautiful as it is. I'm basically looking between the 28-135mm IS and the 28-105mm USM II. I've used the 28-135mm IS before, and while it did fine...mostly the build quality bothered me. I've been reading reviews of both lenses, and I'm actually seeing less negative reviews of the 28-105mm II than I'm seeing of the 28-135mm IS.


I take 95% of the pictures with my XT in raw format, and I'm planning to use the 35mm camera pretty exclusively for black & white photography, so as far as color quality goes, if I can post-process in DPP or Photoshop, I'll be fine with it. I know that 28mm might be a little narrow on the XT body, and I do take a lot of landscapes, but I rarely use the range below 24mm on my 18-55mm lens simply because the photo quality seems to be best right around 24mm on that lens.


Does anyone have experience with both of these lenses that could give me some idea of how they compare? Thanks!

[Colin]

I had the 28-135mm with the XT, and I actually liked it a lot.


I eventually opted to augment it with a wide angle zoom, the 16-35 f/2.8, though in retrospect, I would have saved the money and gone with the 17-40 f/4

[restlesscourage]

I did think about the 17-40mm, but I'm trying to keep my costs under $500 if I can...college student, need to save my money. :P

[Colin]

Well, the build quality isn't great, but for an affordable zoom lens, aside from not going very wide on a 1.6 crop factor camera, I think the 28-135 is a pretty decent lens. The only thing I really didn't like was the play in the barrel. You get a lot for your money, auto focus and reach and image stabilization. I do like the 24-105 more, but the $500 budget probably won't work with that, even on the used market.


Unfortunately, I've not done a direct comparison with the other lens you mention.

[restlesscourage]

Thanks for the input, Colin! In theory I do have enough money to buy the 24-105, but I'd have to pull from my savings to do so, and I really shouldn't do that. :(

[Colin]

Yes, you don't want to get into that habit, if you can help it.


Once you get one lens, you'll inevitably want another.


Nice to see wisdom in youth. I could borrow a little [:)]

[Keith B]

When I first bought my 40D it was the kit with the 28-135. I actually got some really good sharp images out it. I wasn't crazy about the build quality, but I thought the images were very good.

[Colin]

I got a 28-200 for awhile, as a backup.


It really made me appreciate the 28-135.


I gave the 28-200 to my sister.

[restlesscourage]

I'd glanced at the 28-200mm also, good to know that shouldn't really be on my list.
Now I'm thinking about the possiblity of buying a refurbished 40D/28-135mm kit. My brother's girlfriend told me she might be interested in buying my XT when I wanted to upgrade...so that might happen.


I suppose I should also throw out there that I'm not at all opposed to using 3rd party lenses, so if anyone knows of anything comparable that would work on a 35mm and a 1.6 crop body, that would be great too. My only issue with most 3rd party lenses is that they seem to generally lack full-time manual focusing as an option, and that's pretty much a must for me. Half the reason I'm wanting to get rid of that 18-55mm kit lens is my annoyance with no FTM. [:P]