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Newbie +Lenses (Canon)
- Thread starter Chris83
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Get the 70-200mm. Top notch quality all the way through the focal range. Toss a 1.4x extender if you need more reach. On a crop-view body like the XTi, the viewable area with a 1.4x extender would be 448mm, and 320mm with the 70-200mm lens alone.
For the financial aspect. Can you delay the purchase for a month or so to get the extra £££ to buy the better lens? If you buy now and get something not quite as good, you know full well you won't get your money back so that nicer £300 lens costs you that plus the loss you have on selling the other lens.
It would seem for the type of work you want to use the lens for you really are better of getting a quality lens.
Sage advice here. Saving up for an additional month for better glass is MUCH better than having to sell and upgrade later on.
I don't have the 55-250 IS, but I was considering it as it covers the long zoom at 250, and picks up at 55 where my 18-55 ends. The price seems right, but the downside I see is that it does not have the Mode 1/2 IS. Canon states that for panning, you need to use Mode 2, which turns off the side/side stabilization, but keeps the up/down stabilization on.
With the 55-250, you either have IS on or off. So if you pan, you need to turn IS off. Since you're planning on shooting airplanes and race cars, I suspect that you'll want the Mode 1/2 IS.
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My goodness, with all these replies, you'd think you'd need to spend a fortune to get any shots at all and that every picture produced before image stabilization would look like it was painted by Vincent Van Gogh!
I've shot airshows with a non-HSM Sigma 50-500mm (f/6.3 at the long end) and gotten great shots of jets (and non-jets) in flight- without much of a problem with AF either (on a Fuji FinePix S2Pro, known for being slow and slow to focus.)
You have to slow the shutter down for propeller-driven aircraft anyway to get some motion blur on the propellers.
I've also shot the corner at Indy during 500 qualifications with a lens that couldn't have been faster than f/3.5, and was likely at around f/5.6 (back in the old film-only days.)
Faster glass gives you a lot more in terms of options, especially if the skies are dark, or you're shooting late into the day or around dawn- but you can get along just fine without stabilization or fast glass if you have good technique and/or a monopod for longer stuff.
Get whichever lens produces a better picture, practice with it- especially panning to follow moving subjects (airports, highways, tracks...) Consider a monopod for added stability, and practice with that if you're going to shoot that way, otherwise just work on technique and bracing the camera well.
Even on a crop factor body, I'd rather be at 300+mm than 200mm, that 30% (or more) gives you options at airshows where you can't get out on the flight line, or where the controlled airspace is further away than you'd like because of housing areas or other flight restrictions.
WIth motorsports, I've always been trackside- but the last motorcycle race I shot was with a 400mm, and even with a press pass there were times when being at 400mm gave me better options for corner shots. The best things about tracks are that movement is relatively predictable, so you can prefocus, work out hyperfocal distances for your aperture and the like.
What about IS? Since I am a newbie to photography... do you think I would need IS more? I am more inclined towards the F4/L coz of the image quality and color....but confused coz of the lack of IS and I cannot afford the IS version of F4/L coz of the price.
I've got IS on my 300mm and to be honest it's off more than it's on. Lens/camera holding technique can make up for not having IS.
If you will be (1) using the lens under good lighting, (2) have tripod/monopod, or (3) extremely steady hands, you won't miss IS much.
The general rule of getting steady image hand held: shutter speed = 1 / focal length
Since Digital Rebels have 1.6x crop sensor, 70mm becomes 112mm. In order to shoot steady image hand held (with not-so-steady hands), you will need to set your shutter speed to 1/125 second (since 1/112 second setting does not exist). Some people are gifted with steady hands, letting them shoot one to several stops slower.
Under good lighting, it is very easy to get fast shutter speed. But shooting indoor and after sunset, you will be hunting for shutter speed (raising ISO speed, flash, and/or opening aperture).
IS effectively gives you more shutter speed when shooting non-moving subjects. If you needed 1/125 second to shoot at 70mm, a 3-stop IS such as EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM will help you shoot high percentage of steady images at 1/15 second (1/15 - 1/30 - 1/60 - 1/125).
Cheers for the replies and thoughts. I ended up with the 55-250mm IS lens. While I haven't shot any of my intended subject matter I took a few shots in the countryside last week and am quite impressed with its range and the IS.
While searching for the purchase date of my 70-200 f/4L lens from 2008, I found this thread. Hope everyone out there is still enjoying their respective choices. In hindsight, going with the white lens was a great decision as the 'mini' pro lenses tend to hold their value better and are more robustly built. I've since upgraded my XTi to the 80D. What a difference 10 years of tech progress can make!
Impressive.
A relevant reply to a 10 year old thread.
And the fact that it is still available on the forum
