Lens Equilvent to S1

[scott1120]

I am looking to upgrading to the DigRebel. Since money is an object I would like to get a lens that will sort of be equlivent to the range of the S1. Any suggestions?

[Jon]

Somewhere from about 28-200 mm would do; but with that kind of zoom range you're going to get a fairly poor IQ. Sigma and Tamron both make 18-200 lenses that might do; Sigma, at least, offers a 28-300.

[aLFaDaRK]

The exact equivalent would be 24-238mm, so just make sure you cover those lengths. The zooms mentioned above cover the range, but the quality will most likely suffer a lot.

[MaxZoom]

The exact equivalent would be 24-238mm, so just make sure you cover those lengths. The zooms mentioned above cover the range, but the quality will most likely suffer a lot.
In anchient times when I used 35mm film you could not buy a single lens with such a wide zoom range so I don't know the answer to the following, please forgive my ignorance.
Is the way to get the IQ on a dSLR to split this zoom range over two lenses? How would a Tamron or Sigma lens with a 24-238mm range compare to the IQ of the S1 lens? Which brand gives the best bang-per-buck appropriate for a DigRebel - Tamron, Sigma or Canon?

[aLFaDaRK]

Generally, the more zoom range there is, the more quality is sacrificed. A prime lens will always have the highest image quality over a zoom that covers the same range. So theoretically the best way to split the zoom range would be between as many lenses as possible, which obviously is impractical. You can look in the EF and EF-S forum at the lens archives with some of the zooms to check the quality, and buy whatever works for what you need. I like to buy Canon gear so that it reatains value if I ever want to sell or trade it, but Sigma and Tamron have many good lenses which may be more appropriate if you're on a budget.

There is no exact lens with a focal range of 24-238mm, but as Jon mentioned, there are 28-200, 18-200, and 28-300 zoom lenses. But with a long zoom comes lost quality. If the quality loss isn't a big deal to you, then you can get one of those, but if you want higher quality which makes use of a DSLR's higher resolving power, I'd suggest a series of zooms or primes.

[MaxZoom]

Thanks aLFaDaRK, pretty much as I expected but its nice to get confirmation.:D

On an S1/2/3 we loose out because the sensor is is small but lenses are much easier to make. The only bit missing in my mind is, given lots of light, low ISO and most other things being equal like pixel count how would lens related IQ on S1/2/3 compare to one of its big glass zoom brothers?
My old Tamron 28-70mm from my 35mm days was as good IQ as I ever got on film. Much of that might be down to the photo lab, but all the ones I tried onver many years had similar results.
Given lots of light, a bit of PP, I find my S3 & DSC-P200 meet or exceed anything I ever got back from the photo lab except on the full wide setting where you can see IQ issues on the P&S cameras. Just curious in case anyone has done some type of A/B comparison on lens performance?