Gear for beginners

[jonesejm]

Hello everyone,


Hope you can help. I have a canon 450d with the bog standard 18-55mm IS lens. I really enjoy landscape (mostly waterfalls) and sports photography and am going to get the 70-200mm F4 L lens. As a beginner i

[Kayaker72]

I know you are mostly asking about landscape pics/lenses, but just because you didn

[neuroanatomist]

Any lens can be used for landscape photos (well, almost any lens - maybe not the MP-E 65mm). Telephoto lenses are used to isolate elements or compress the scene (the appearance of the background and foreground being close together). Standard lenses give a 'normal' viewpoint. But probably the most commonly used type of lens for scenic landscapes are wide or ultra-wide angle lenses. With your 450D and its 1.6x FOVCF, your 18mm lens is the equivalent of 29mm on full frame - not that wide. There are are a few of options for ultrawide lenses on 1.6x - the Canon EF-S 10-22mm, Tokina 11-16mm, and some offerings from Sigma. Of them, I've used only the Canon 10-22mm, and it's really an excellent and fun lens.

[TakahiroW4047]

Just an added note to neuroanatomist about the ultra wide angle lens for 1.6x FOVCF.


I had the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and I loved it! It was great for landscape and architecture.


I tried expanding my use of the lens to portraits with a twist. Different perspectives and angles not achievable from standard focal lengths.


But I realized that the Tokina has a pretty strong distortion at 11mm. From what I can tell and from the reviews from this site, the Canon 10-22mm has less distortion and despite the increase in price, definitely worth it in the long run.


But at the same time, I had to get rid of this lens since it wasn't usable in many situations.


I got the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 & Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L in it's place.


I wouldn't recommend the wide angle as a second lens....maybe a third.


Possibly stick with the 18mm for your landscapes, and like you said get the 70-200mm range for your sports []

[neuroanatomist]

From what I can tell and from the reviews from this site, the Canon 10-22mm has less distortion and despite the increase in price, definitely worth it in the long run.

The EF-S 10-22mm does very well in the distortion department - there is barrel distortion present, but it's relatively minor (and can often be worked around with composition). In the example onthe left (at 10mm) you can see a bit of distortion in the leaves at the upper left. In the example on the right (at 13mm) it's more evident because of the placement of the fountain.




EOS 7D, EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 10mm, 0.6 s, f/14, ISO 100 EOS 7D, EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 13mm, 1/500 s, f/8, ISO 100


The performance of the EF-S 10-22mm on distortion is actually substantially better than the FF UWA zoom lenses (16-35mm f/2.8L II, 17-40mm f/4L) - so much better than even when those L lenses are used on a 1.6x crop body in the 'sweet spot' of the lenses, the 10-22mm still shows less distortion!