Which lens? Help me here!

[Sepiana]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to acquire a second lens for my Canon XSI. All I have now is the kit lens --18-55mm IS. It should fit these conditions:

- I prefer shooting landscape and architecture.
- My husband likes shooting birds and all kinds of wildlife.
- We'd be carrying it on trips. (We do a lot of hiking.)
- We may lack a tripod sometimes. Ex: when hiking up a trail.

Would this lens meet our needs? Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM.

Sorry for asking this lame question. I've checked this forum and the Net, but I think I need some interactive input and recommendations.

Thanks in advance!

[RonH]

I like my 70-300 but you also might want to consider the
Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO as a carry around lense.

I don't know what your primary lense is now but this has a pretty wide range. I am also not sure of the $$ comparisons.

Ron

[Chuck S.]

Sepiana, the 70-300 will be good for wildlife that you can get near, but it doesn't have the reach needed for distant shots of birds and small animals.

With respect to landscapes and architecture, you really need a side angle lens. the 17-85 mm is one suggestion. I have an even wider one - the 10-22 - but it really does give a fisheye effect that needs to be corrected in Elements, preferably using the PT Lens plug-in.

Canon has a new wide range lens, I believe - something along the lines of the 18-270 Tamron described by Ron. If you only wanted to carry one lens to cover both ends of the spectrum, a lens in this range would be a good choice.

[lowbone]

Sepiana, One of my lenses is the 70-300mm IS lens that you mention. It is an excellent lens and I use it allot when I travel bcause it is much lighter then my telephotos. That being said I cannot see how this lens will meet your requirements and I don't know of a single lens that will. Generally speaking when landscape is photographed a wide angle lens is used. I don't know your budget but if you can afford it the Canon 17-55 f 2.8 is a wnderful lens for that purpose. As far as wildlife is concerned, bare minimum is generally considered to be 400mm. Even that will not get you close to allot of creatures. With wildlife shooters nothing seems to be long enough. A friend of mine was using th new Canon 800mm lens with a 2X converter and wished he had more reach. It is amazing how close you have to be to a bird in order to fill the viewfinder, but I digress. I think you are basically talking about two lenses. Since you don't plan to carry a tripod I think IS would be very helpful. The rest depends on your budget.

[Codebreaker]

A lot of course depends on your budget.

I've written to Santa for a Canon 70-200mm f4 L IS USM and a 100-400mm f4 L IS USM.

I think I'm more likely to win the lottery than get this in my sack on christmas day. Still if you don't ask.... :)

Colin

[Sepiana]

Thanks, Ron, Chuck, lowbone, Colin.

No need to say I need to digest all of this. I think some note-taking will help.

Here are some clarifications:

- all I have now is the XSi kit lens: 18-55mm IS (I've just added this info to my initial post).

- I'd be trading-in our Promaster 70-300mm and trying to keep the cost under $700. A couple of years ago, this was the lens the salesperson recommended, but I was never happy with images I took with this lens. I'm sure it was my not knowing how to use it.

In short, I want to "get rid" of my old lens and make a smart lens purchase for my new camera.

[winclk]

don't know how good the canon kit lens is but you could use that for your landscapes for now to cut down your cost and just get a lens for your wildlife shooting.