It
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Steve U
Wine, Food and Photography Student and Connoisseur
*mumbles something about ansell adams and hiking with his multi-kg setup for days for one shot*
but even without all Dan
An awful lot of electrons were terribly inconvenienced in the making of this post.
Gear Photos
There was a pretty good discussion yesterday between the 17-55 and 15-85.
community.the-digital-picture.com/.../6030.aspx
You may find some of that relevant.
But I agree with the Dr. One of your first decisions is are you staying APS-C (17-55 or 15-85) or do you plan to upgrade to FF at some point soon...say 3 months as foreseen by David?
I sold my 17-40, which I used on a 7D, because it was lackluster and had limited range. If your style tends towards people, portraits and general photography and not so much landscapes, then you might get away with 24mm on the wide end on an APS-C sensor. Otherwise get the 15-85, 17-55 or Tamron 17-50 (non VC).
The best lenses tend to weigh the most. If you are worried about weight, get an R-Strap (blackrapid.com). I cannot imagine life without mine. It might actually be the most important accessory that I have; without it I would certainly get tired of shlepping around my 7D and 70-300L.
dragging the point further from the OP and towards retaining systems, i saw this or something similar in an ad once, just googled and found this:
http://www.spiderholster.com/
ok, so wedding and event photography, i wouldn
An awful lot of electrons were terribly inconvenienced in the making of this post.
Gear Photos
Daniel, why not the MP-E 65mm, if you're so sure Caleb wants to shoot macro?
Witicism aside, it mostly comes down to what you want to shoot. I'm going to make the assumption that you've got just the EF-S 18-55mm lens that came with your T3i. If you've got a closet full of L glass, oh well. On a 1.6x crop body like the T3i, 24mm is not a wide angle lens (38mm FF-equivalent, meaning it's in the 'normal' range). So, given the choices above, if you want wide angle that rules out the 24-xx L zooms. I'd only buy a 17-40mm f/4L to use on a crop body if I imbibed enough alcohol to completely lose control of higher reasoning functions, while retaining just enough mental capability to type a credit card number into an online shopping cart. So, I guess that leaves the 15-85mm. Of course, if you can afford a 24-105mm, you can also consider a 17-55mm f/2.8. If so, read the thread that Kayaker72 (Brant) linked above.
I worked up the nerve to buy the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS several years ago based on Bryan