I need help on what to upgrade my setup to...
this is what I have right now:
-Rebel XS
-canon 18-55is (never use)
-Tokina 11-16 (most used)
-Canon 50mm 1.8 (second most used)
-canon 75-300 (love the range, could be longer, hate the IQ)
I prefer to invest more in glass than new body
I really like the Canon 15-85, 70-200f4is and 100-400
I like to shoot birds...
I travel tons
What two lenses would you recomend to make a decent 3-4 lens carry everything everywhere kit?
Tough choices! Since you like to shoot birds, I'd be inclined to recommend the 100-400mm - longer range and far superior IQ to a 75-300mm.
The 70-200mm f/4L IS is also an excellent lens, but lacks the reach for most bird shooting. Getting both a 100-400mm and a 70-200mm f/4 would probably be too much overlap.
The two lenses you use most share a couple of features - good IQ and fast apertures. The 15-85mm has good IQ, but is slow (so is the 100-400mm, but it's also long and that's the tradeoff short of paying thousands of dollars for a supertele).
If you can afford an additional lens after the 100-400mm, I'd recommend the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS.
Good point about the apertures! I do a lot of low light shooting but usually long exposures with a tripod. I know that I will really enjoy the 100-400, but I really like the 70-100 range, maybe the tokina 50-135 would be a good in-between lens for portraits and urban stuff. I'm not afraid of the narrow apertures of the 15-85, because the IS can make up for it, and I don't shoot action....oh, i also need a good bag to fit all this stuff in! Think tank UD60! mmmm.....
Originally Posted by Carbonator
The other thing IS can't make up for is the OOF blur that results from the thin DoF of a wide aperture, usually a desired characteristic in portraits. But, you'd have the 50mm f/1.8 for that (although bokeh 'quality' is not great with that lens). Another portrait option is the relatively inexpensive but really excellent EF 85mm f/1.8.
But if you can live with the narrow apertures the 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS seems to be a nice (if slightly overpriced) lens.
I agree with what neruoanatomist said regarding the overlap. The 70-200 is awesome, but your kit might benefit from a lens like the 24-105 f4 to complete the focal range coverage. I've been wanting to get a 100-400 myself, but I have trouble justifying it since I already have a 70-200. There's also the 17-55 2.8, which I am a huge fan of, but it does leave a pretty major coverage gap.
If i could afford it, I'd get both the 70-200 and 100-400 (I'd have lots of stuff if I could afford it!), but I'm leaning towards the 15-85 + 100-400. i guess the other option would be 17-55 2.8 + 70-400 f4 +1.4x tele. i'd be missing out on the 300-400mm range in exchange for a faster overall package. what do you guys think of the Tokina 50-135 f 2.8? It sounds like it could bridge the gap between a 17-55 and the 100-400. The other issue is that I'm shooting a rebel XS, I'd like to upgrade that as well...
If you go with the 70-200mm lens, you lose the reach but you can always crop and produce the same result in print. I guess you don't need the whole picture and all the pixels in bird shooting, do you?
You should definitely get the 100-400 then (even if it means getting only 1 additional lens instead of two). Plus, out of all the super teles, it is the best lens for travel because of the flexibility of the zoom.
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That's an excellent travel lens, and it will complement the 100-400 and 11-16 very nicely, I think that would be an excellent choice.
The 70-200 f/4 L IS would not be a good choice for birding unless you can get extremely close. The 70-200 with a 1.4X still has very high quality (as good as the 100-400 in the center -- where it matters for birding), so if you can get close enough to use 280mm (without cropping), then it is a better choice than the 100-400.
But in my experience, getting that close is almost impossible.In the birding I've done, the best (1.6X) focal lengths are around 800mm (e.g. 100-400 with a 2X TC). For example, if you compare 100-400 with a 1.4X TC vs 70-200 with a 2X (both f/8), the 100-400 trounces it quite soundly.
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<div>Unfortunately, that's not true. With current cameras (and especially older cameras like the XS), cropping results in far lower quality (less detail and lower contrast) than longer focal lengths -- even using TC. Hopefully Canon will continue to work to increase pixel count so that future cameras will make TC less necessary.</div>
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I recently got the 100-400L for birding/nature photography after trying with a 70-200 f/4 that I've had for a few years. If you want to shoot birds, the 100-400 is a far better option, even on a crop camera. A 1.4 tc may close the gap a bit but now you're cropping a teleconverted image to still not have as much reach.
Why aren't you using your kit lens? Just because of the quality or because you don't shoot in that focal range very much? If not then buying a 17-55 2.8 may not be worth the money and leaving the large gap between 55 and 100.
If portraits aren't your priority then you'll probably be fine with the slower 15-85 or 18-135, which are better options to partner with the 100-400L. The 24-105 is great too but I don't know how much better it is on crop and then you'll lose 16-24 which is a useful range for travel photography in my opinion. When I upgraded from the 17-85 to the 24-105 on my 40D I didn't feel like I got a lot of value for the significant cost. If you want 2.8 then you could get the 17-55 and 50-135 (can't comment on either) but it's quite a lot more money, it's an extra lens to carry around, and a lot more lens swapping. Is that worth it to you? You could also consider the much cheaper, smaller and lighter Tamron 17-50 2.8 if you went that route and didn't care about IS too much.
and Daniel basically hit all of my points while I was writing slowly and doing other things. At least we agree for the most part
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