New lens for the Canon 300D (Anders Jacobsen's blog)

September 02, 2004

New lens for the Canon 300D

A friend (with no website I can link to) mailed me:

Hey Anders
Hope you are well. I’m looking to treat myself with a new lens for my 300D. Any recommendations? I currently only have the standard EF-S 18 - 55 mm F3.5 - F5.6 one they supply with the camera…

For the perusal of anyone else making the same considerations, I post my reply:

I’ve got three lenses:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 – extremely open portrait lens – just got it but seems brilliant; photos coming online soon
Sigma 20-40mm f/2.8 – somewhat similar to the one you have got on your 300D - an open wide angle lens; very large front element (difficult/expensive to get filters)
Canon EF-L 70-200mm f/4 – serious zoom lens really good, but a bit pricey

Depending on what you use your camera for, you probably want a larger zoom than what you have now. A friend of mine picked up a 75-300mm - or something in that region - Canon zoom lens for his 300D for around 250$ I think.

Otherwise: when buying lenses you generally get what you pay for: my L series zoom lens was expensive (though not extremely expensive) and it’s damn good... A couple of example photos taken using it:

extrospection: Smiling Old Lady
extrospection: Where are we? - one of my favourite photos

Does anyone else have recommendations for 300D owners itching to get another lens?

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Comments

Prime lenses are generally sharper than zoom lenses, but building a collection can be expensive.

Posted by: on September 2, 2004 04:38 PM

Just wanted to say: fabulous portraits. Especially the couple with the Covent Garden booklet. :-)

Posted by: Eirik on September 2, 2004 08:44 PM

The Canon EF 50/1.8 II is a must have for any EOS owners, not just 300D. It's probably the cheapest lens in the EF line-up, but really sharp. The mk1 is even better if you can find one. With the 1.6x crop factor on the 300D, it becomes an 80mm lens, perfect for portraits. The large aperture of 1.8 will give you nice lowlight performance and the possibility to get really short DOF.

Posted by: jonne on September 2, 2004 11:36 PM

Jonne, the EF 50/1.4 that Anders mentions is actually supposed to be a good deal better than the 1.8. One of the main differences I understand is the build of the lense. The 1.4 is a lot more rugged.

And I know from my own experience with technology that a little more rugged can be woth the extra money...

Looking forward to getting myself the 50/1.4, and hopefully also the 70-200 F4L lense that Anders has.

Posted by: Jarle on September 2, 2004 11:43 PM

high times

i would prefer the tamron 28-75/2,8 SP AF XR Di Macro as an always in use lense...

regards

haris pilton

Posted by: Haris Pilton on September 3, 2004 09:17 AM