Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and new to photography. Well, new to good photography at least. My partner bought me a Canon S5IS years ago and we used to snap photos of holidays etc and it did the job fine. For some reason I was inspired to take better photos etc, not for professional use, but for a hobby and fun.

So, I went out and bought the Canon 650D with the twin lens kit. I've heard it's a good DSLR for beginners so thought it seemed great. I've been using it for a few weeks and I'm having great fun with it. I didn't realize how much cool stuff was in my hometown until I wandered it's streets with a camera.

I've noticed though the lenses that came with it don't allow for certain scenarios. For example, my partner asked me to take photos of an engagement ring from the 1940s... Even zooming in I couldn't get a clear close up. I've been told I need a macro lens for that.

I've shown some photos to friends and apparently some shots are great, but some they've said I need a more wide lense etc for this or that. I looked into more lenses but I'm confused... Sales reps run rings around me with this stuff, and we all know they don't care about the customer and only want the money so will say anything to get it (even tried selling an amateur like me a few $2000 lenses). I tried reading up on the details on some lenses and got confused with focal length and aperture and the way they interact etc.

Then you talk to a photographer and they say "you need a 40mm or a pancake" then another photographer says "you need a 70-300mm" for the same scenario.

So I thought I'd ask here, what do I need? My main shots are nature, flowers and the odd portrait. We also want something to take good clear photos of our child when they arrive. Mainly natural (such as colourful flowers or landscape shots of trees, parks etc or old buildings etc)

I've also been told to avoid sigma lenses and stick to canon, then others say the opposite

Can someone please help an absolute noob out?