Birthday present for me!

My birthday is coming up and my wife wants to get me a new pro lens (Or an iPad). I do not need the iPad. I have both Canon and Nikon bodies but no pro lenses yet. I like both systems but I think I need to choose one. My newest bodies are Nikon D300 and on the Canon side a Rebel T2i. It seems like the pro lenses are more expensive with the Nikon side. Any ideas I want I should do?

(I really want a Canon 70-200mm IS II)

Current lenses

Nikon
18-200mm VR
35mm 1.8
50mm 1.8 D
85mm 1.8 D
55-200mm VR
Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
8mm Samyang fisheye 3.5

Canon lenses
100mm Macro USM 2.8
50mm 1.8 II
18-55mm IS
Tamron 70-200mm 2.8
Lensbaby 2.0

I think you should sell all your Nikon or all your canon and buy more then 1 lens.

Fricks wrote in post #13838599
I think you should sell all your Nikon or all your canon and buy more then 1 lens.

Do you know what her budget is? I would say "yikes" about the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II for a birthday present price, but just got hubby to get me that and a few other things and it wasn't my birthday, so anything is possible.

It's a great lens and the sharpest one I've gotten so far (but I don't have any L-quality primes). What do you think her price range is? You could always give her a few of your favorite choices?

Since you're running the T2i, the 17-55mm f/2.8 is often recommended, even though it isn't "L" it's great image quality and more expensive than some L lenses.

What do you shoot most?

You might want to look at a few things you like to shoot, pick lenses that work best for that and give her a price range of selections (maybe three). That way you don't have to overwhelm her with a $2000+ lens if that's outside of her budget and still let her feel like she's getting you something you want.

(speaking from a woman's point of view) Men are SO hard to buy for, so that's good that she's already got this part pegged. Too bad hubby doesn't care enough for me to get him more lenses...

So someone has to tell me how to get about $3000 more worth of camera equipment out of him... that will fill out the 'basics' of my kit at least...

wuzzittoya wrote in post #13838691


Do you know what her budget is? I would say "yikes" about the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II for a birthday present price, but just got hubby to get me that and a few other things and it wasn't my birthday, so anything is possible.

It's a great lens and the sharpest one I've gotten so far (but I don't have any L-quality primes). What do you think her price range is? You could always give her a few of your favorite choices?

Since you're running the T2i, the 17-55mm f/2.8 is often recommended, even though it isn't "L" it's great image quality and more expensive than some L lenses.

What do you shoot most?

You might want to look at a few things you like to shoot, pick lenses that work best for that and give her a price range of selections (maybe three). That way you don't have to overwhelm her with a $2000+ lens if that's outside of her budget and still let her feel like she's getting you something you want.

(speaking from a woman's point of view) Men are SO hard to buy for, so that's good that she's already got this part pegged. Too bad hubby doesn't care enough for me to get him more lenses...

Thanks for the info. Budget is at least $1000 and maybe up to $2000. I saved up $500 I can add towards my present. I shoot a wide range of stuff from a few weddings to street photography to studio and macro. So far I have been happy with the kit lens for wide angle stuff.

wuzzittoya wrote in post #13838694
So someone has to tell me how to get about $3000 more worth of camera equipment out of him... that will fill out the 'basics' of my kit at least...

Responses to this could get bad....LOL!

Fricks wrote in post #13838599
I think you should sell all your Nikon or all your canon and buy more then 1 lens.

I am wiling to sell some of it but I really would like to keep some Nikon gear.

If you really want the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II, you could consider selling the Tamron to also help pay for it? Just an idea... no reason to have two fairly similar lenses.

If you do a LOT of weddings/studio I might look more carefully at primes since they have the very best image quality and are favored by wedding and portrait photographers. I haven't had a lot of them yet, though, so I can't give you a lot of advice about them. I went with high-quality zooms that covered what I shot most when I picked my two new lenses instead.

@BrickR - I'm wayyyy too lucky.

wuzzittoya wrote in post #13838982
If you really want the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II, you could consider selling the Tamron to also help pay for it? Just an idea... no reason to have two fairly similar lenses.

If you do a LOT of weddings/studio I might look more carefully at primes since they have the very best image quality and are favored by wedding and portrait photographers. I haven't had a lot of them yet, though, so I can't give you a lot of advice about them. I went with high-quality zooms that covered what I shot most when I picked my two new lenses instead.

@BrickR - I'm wayyyy too lucky.

Thanks again for your help. The Tamron I got for super cheap but yeah I do not need two 70-200mm f2.8 lenses. I do love primes so I am still not sure what to do.

seattle1 wrote in post #13839055
Thanks again for your help. The Tamron I got for super cheap but yeah I do not need two 70-200mm f2.8 lenses. I do love primes so I am still not sure what to do.

There are wedding photographers who have the 70-200mm f/2.8 and love it for that. However they are shooting full frame, too. Another popular lens for weddings is the 24-70mm f/2.8. Like I said, though, primes are, too. There are always trade-offs (though they aren't as serious with the higher-priced lenses) when you have a zoom range vs. optimizing a lens for only one focal length. When you have only one focal length you can shape each lens in the assembly to address the distortions that might occur and optimize it a lot more effectively than when you have multiple ranges to optimize for. If you're interested in zooms and planning a lot of portrait/wedding/indoo​r work, I might look at that one if you really want to look at another zoom because you don't have the money to get enough primes... I wish the really opinionated people would chime in. I'm sure one they would recommend would be the 35mm because it comes close to a 50mm on a crop sensor. Upgrading your 50mm to the 1.2 would also probably be suggested, or the 85mm prime.