Manual focus lens recommendations

[djrambis]

Hello there! I'm a noob to the DLSR world. I've had my 300D for almost 4 months now. I find that I enjoy/prefer manual focusing and find the kit lense and 50/1.8 (which I just purchased) focus ring to be awkward and too small. Are there EF lenses out there with a bigger focus ring or generally manual focus friendly?

[raylks]

Try any L lens. They are built like a tank and they enable full time manual focus where you can simply adjust your focus manually as you have half-pressed the shutter release. Also they enable you focus manually with an AF/MF switch.

[DaveG]

Hello there! I'm a noob to the DLSR world. I've had my 300D for almost 4 months now. I find that I enjoy/prefer manual focusing and find the kit lense and 50/1.8 (which I just purchased) focus ring to be awkward and too small. Are there EF lenses out there with a bigger focus ring or generally manual focus friendly?

As far as I know all of the USM lenses have full time manual focus, as well as AF. The focus ring may be small but I think that you'd get used to that pretty quickly.

[Jon]

As far as I know all of the USM lenses have full time manual focus, as well as AF. The focus ring may be small but I think that you'd get used to that pretty quickly.
Only the ring-motor USMs and the 50 f/1.4 have full-time manual, to the best of my memory.

[Andy_T]

DJrambis,

let me tell you a secret ... you don't need an EF lens if you want to focus manually :D

In fact, you can save a lot of money by buying an adapter for M42 screw mount or Nikon lenses, if you don't mind to focus manually. And these lenses were built for manual focus, so they normally have some full turns from one end to the other. You don't have to worry about full time manual, either :lol:

Take a look at this great thread with various lens reviews (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=62616) that Ken meticulously created complete with test shots including 100% crops.

PS: When I say 'a lot of money' I mean it.
I got a Russian Jupiter 85/2.0, Tair-3 300/4.5 and East German Carl Zeiss Jena 135/3.5 lens on eBay
... all together for ~$ 100 :shock:

Best regards,
Andy

[djrambis]

Thank you for the feedback folks !!!

:cool:

[PhotosGuy]

You might have noticed that I'm using my old Nikkors on my 300D & I'm very happy with them. It gives new life to the bellows, extention tubes & filters that I bought 40 years ago!

[cactusclay]

It's too bad you can't get different focusing screens for the Rebel and 20d, then it would be much easier to focus manually.

[PhotosGuy]

I agree. It's one of the things I really miss with the 300D.

[soupdragon]

The 100 2.8 macro has a huge manual focusing ring, it's just like the real thing.