Which lens to get

[Albert05]

I'm looking for some advice on what lens to get. I recently bought a canon 350D and the only lens i have is the 18 - 55mm (not finding it to be that great). I am interested in doing portraits(especially with background blur), family shots/weddings and landscapes. What are the basic lenses i need, I am on a budget and am a complete novice. I was told the canon 70-200mm f/4.0 was a good lens the f2.8 is out of my price range. Is the sigma 70-200 f2.8 a good quality lens. I can afford 2 lenses at the moment, they need to cover most eventualities.

Any help would be most appreciated

Albert05

[EpHeSuS]

I don't really think 2 lenses will cover your uses.

Perhaps you could get the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG Macro and the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX. Both are fine lenses. Check out fStopjojo's test website for some tests with these lenses
Fstopjojo's Lens Tests (http://www.pbase.com/fstopjojo/lenstests)

[JohnnyBlood]

If I had $580 to spend I would purchase the:

Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II ($80): Inexpensive, fast portrait lens.
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM ($500): Good walk-around lens.

If I had $1000 to spend I would purchase the:

Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II ($80): Inexpensive, fast portrait lens.
Canon EF-S 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5 USM ($680): Superb landscape photos.
Canon EF 70-210mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (Used $180 on Ebay): Great discontinued zoom lens.

If I had $1500 to spend I would purchase the:

Canon EF-S 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5 USM ($600): Superb landscape photos.
Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 Macro USM ($400): Good portrait lens and is a macro.
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM ($500): Good walk-around lens.

[fWord]

It depends on how much money you really wish to load off on lenses at this stage. Going based on your interests, a really conservative setup would be to use the kit lens as a travel/ landscape/ casual candid/ group shot lens, and to get the 50mm f/1.8 as your portrait lens.

If you want something of a higher quality, then the 50mm f/1.4 or 85mm f/1.8 is a great choice for head-and-shoulders portraits, and I reckon it'll give nice background blur (bokeh) in your images. Alternatively, consider the more expensive 135mm f/2L, but this may be a little long on your camera, so it's imperative to decide if you really need such a focal length in your setup.

Higher quality alternatives of landscape lenses include the following, depending on how wide you want to go:

Canon EF-S 10-22mm
Tokina 12-24mm
Canon EF-S 17-85mm
Canon EF 17-40mmL
Canon EF 24-105mmL
Tamron 24-135mm

For wedding shots, you'll probably also need a flash, but I'm new to that as well, so I can't comment.

The Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 is a nice lens as well, but I don't know if it's commonly used for your intended purposes. I gather that something like this will be used at events and perhaps for indoor sports.