Best Lens for Baby Pictures.

[HDNitehawk]

I do have a kit lens, its the 18-55. I'm a layman, and what does too wide for portraits mean? I have a class next Monday to hep me understand, but right now, i'm pretty ignorant.

The wider the lens more background you are going to have in the picture and less of your subject. Field of View (FOV), where you might be doing full body shots of two or three people at 24mm or 35mm, you might be doing cowboy portraits at 55mm and head shots when you use a 70-200mm. Of course it all depends on how far you are from the subject. Personally I shoot most of my indoor shots at home with the 35mm so I think it is just fine, and on a crop body for me it might actually frame a little tight.

However, A 35mm lens on your camera is going to give you a very generic field of view since it will be equivalent to 56mm on a full frame camera. At 56mm it is close to the same Field of View the human eye has. Personally I wouldn't go for the 35mm F/1.4 L on a crop body like yours, what makes the 35mm great is what it can do on a Full Frame body. I would much prefer the 24mm F1.4L over the 35mm for a crop body, it would give me a similar FOV as I get with my 35mm.

In your situation I would get the 17-55 first then second the 70-200mm. After that start adding primes as you think you need them. From a financial standpoint I wouldn't buy any primes till you know that you actually need them, not because any one has told you that will need them. The IQ of primes is better than the zooms, usually. They are specialty tools that are very expensive. You can establish the need with experience from your zoom lenses.