do i need to upgrade body or buy better lensses

hi i am a photography hobbyist.. i currently have a canon eos 600d aka t3i..

i am not yet heavily invested but planning too,,,

taking descent pictures for 2 years now..so you know that i am only amateur ...i love portrait and landscape photography...sometime​s i shoot in low light...

i only have the kit lens 18-55mm and the well know 50mm 1.8...

i am thinking to buy better lens and flash...or just upgrade to a better body....

suggestion will be much appreciated

The general rule is glass before bodies. You have some very basic glass, so I would say get some better glass to start with and go from there. Hard to go wrong w/ a 70-200 f/4L non-IS. Will set you back ~$500, but will produce some very nice images. A 50 f/1.4 or maybe an 85 f/1.8 would also be good choices for the things you say you like to shoot. If you can swing the money, an EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 will be a big step up from your 18-55 kit lens. The downside is that it won't work if you go to a full-frame camera. A 24-105 f/4L would also be a good choice, and will work on a full-frame body. Won't set you back as much at an EF-S 17-55 f/2.8, but also isn't as wide, or as fast. There are many people that think that the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 is the best crop-only lens that Canon sells, and borders on being L quality.

thank you for the quick reply...

i am thinking to buy 24-105mm f/4...or two prime lens 28mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8 this two will be almost same price of the 24-105mm f/4....

definitely upgrade your glass before doing anything else. For landscape, you will be better served with a true wide angle on crop (28 isn't very wide). I would suggest the tamron 17-50 (non-VC) or the canon 17-55IS. The tammy is a great lens, as is the 17-55; crop cameras will be around for a long time so you will be able to sell a crop only lens. Either one paired with an 85/1.8 and you will have a great kit. You also really should have a flash - just by being able to bounce, your flash images will greatly improve.

Before you upgrade anything, what is it your current setup can't do (or doesn't do well enough for you) that you want it to do? Upgrading just for the sake of upgrading never makes sense unless you've got a lot of disposable income available.

bryjosh9385 wrote in post #15615839
thank you for the quick reply...

i am thinking to buy 24-105mm f/4...or two prime lens 28mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8 this two will be almost same price of the 24-105mm f/4....

Those were my two most-used prime lenses when I was shooting a crop body. The 28mm works well for indoor gatherings of family and friends (better for me than 50mm, which was too long), while the 85mm was very useful for indoor sports, family weddings, concerts, etc.

The 24-105L is a great all purpose lens for a full frame body, but it's not very wide on a crop. I would look at the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 non-VC, Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 OS, Canon EFS 15-85 IS or Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS (from least expensive to most expensive) instead as an upgrade for your general purpose zoom.

As others have said, glass before bodies. I've had my 350D for at least 6 years, but I only just opened its full potential with the purchase of my 100mm 2.8L macro lens. I'm blown away at the difference it made! Sure I will upgrade the body with time, but for sure get glass 1st.

body upgrade and good lenses is almost priced same..thats why i asked..but i am leaning on lens upgrade...so i am asking you guys which lens is better...i know the 17-55 f/2.8 is the best all around lens for APS-C...but the price tag of this is high...so why not buy a lens that will work good in APS-C and can be used to full frame..coz i know i will not spend my whole life using non full frame camera...

just forget about BODY upgrade now...

what lens is good for landscape that will also be good in full frame...(is the 10-22mm good for full frame...)

and Portrait i decided to go with the 85mm f/1.8 or the sigmas f/1.4

As said you can do well with lenses. You say you won't always use a crop body. You shouldn't waste money on crop only lenses so as they don't hold their value to well in general.
To be honest though the t3i is good enough for portraits and landscape also. Ff certainly has advantages but so do crop cameras.

bryjosh9385 wrote in post #15616030
body upgrade and good lenses is almost priced same..thats why i asked..but i am leaning on lens upgrade...so i am asking you guys which lens is better...i know the 17-55 f/2.8 is the best all around lens for APS-C...but the price tag of this is high...so why not buy a lens that will work good in APS-C and can be used to full frame..coz i know i will not spend my whole life using non full frame camera...

just forget about BODY upgrade now...

what lens is good for landscape that will also be good in full frame...(is the 10-22mm good for full frame...)

and Portrait i decided to go with the 85mm f/1.8 or the sigmas f/1.4

Again, what is it that your current lenses (since we've ruled out the body) can't do that you'd like to do and what are you planning to do with your setup? Just telling you which lenses to buy doesn't help at all without knowing what you can't do and what you want to do.

You mentioned some landscape and full frame. You mentioned the 10-20 (Canon obviously). That's an ultra wide angle (UWA) lens and there are a few out on the market (I use a Tokina for my real estate photography business). None of the UWA lenses will work on a full frame body without problems with vinetting. So you'd be buying another lens if/when you get a full frame body. No way around this if you want UWA for your current crop body.

For portrait photography, are you planning to do this to earn money or just to play around? Honestly, I find my 70-200 f2.8L to work wonderfully well for my portrait business. I don't do enough to justify buying a prime just for that so I use that. Other photogs also use it as it's great glass. You can pick up a Mk I sans image stabilization fairly inexpensively these days. I also use that lens for many other things (sports, wildlife, etc). It's on my camera more often than anything else when I'm not shooting real estate.

But, again, without knowing what problems you're having, it's difficult to give sound advice on what you should do.

Glass. glass.. glass..
10-22 - outstanding wide angle and adds a lot of range to your current setup.
17-55IS - outstanding piece of glass. Same range as your 18-55 but if it's the 18-55 non-IS the 17-55 smokes the 18-55 and in way better than the 24-105 on a crop as well.
Skip the 70-200 non-IS. It's nice but not that nice. Very basic medium zoom. Go for the 70-200IS. Costs more but this lens has the WOW effect. An outstanding hunk of glass.

Or..
Go for the primes, but some of the new zooms today are delivering prime quality with more versatility.

jaomul wrote in post #15616104
As said you can do well with lenses. You say you won't always use a crop body. You shouldn't waste money on crop only lenses so as they don't hold their value to well in general.
To be honest though the t3i is good enough for portraits and landscape also. Ff certainly has advantages but so do crop cameras.

Better to buy lenses for the current camera than buying lenses that _might_ be used with a FF camera later.

There aren't really any good wide lenses that fits on FF and that are still wide enough for a crop body. The range 10-16mm is very nice to have when using a crop body. Every single mm on the wide end means a lot of difference.

For 24mm and up, it's easy to find FF-compatible lenses. But lots of them too will behave better on a crop body since the body will just cherry-pick the center part of the image.

It used to be that the general thought around here that the 24-105 was not usable on a crop sensor body. I've always been an advocate of this lens, crop or FF. It's a large range, maybe a little long on the wide end on a crop, but it's never been a huge limitation for me. I currently have a 7D (and a FF body too) and my go kit is the 24-105 and 100-400 with either body. I have rarely if ever felt limited with this kit. And it's not like I don't have a full gamut of lenses to choose from : 17-40, 24-105, 28-70, 8-16, 70-200, 100-400, 500, 50, 85. That go kit works in most situations.

If you want a great little lens kit to build from I would suggest the 17-40 f/4L and 70-200 f/4 combination. They are high quality, priced decently, will upgrade to FF, the 70-200 will work fine as a portrait lens, and will give you quit a range. You give up some in speed with f/4, but with the quality of high ISO now it's not as much of a limitation.

ok i find the kit lens not that sharp.me and my friend have same body we took a picture of landscape we have same settings but his lens is a sigma forget which one when we compared the image i can see that mine was not as sharp,then tried his lens on mine with same settings then it was sharp....and my copy of 50mm is sometimes giving a miss focus...i also know that some where f/4 is the sweet spot for the 50mm f/1.8 and the 18-55mm when set to 18mm to 24mm sims to be sharp at f8....
yes i am planning to make a buss. maybe i will go to a wedding photography..and landscape will be for my spare time....

casaaviocar wrote in post #15616137
It used to be that the general thought around here that the 24-105 was not usable on a crop sensor body. ..

It's not so much that it's not usable, but the 17-55 is just a way better lens for less cost especially if you compare it at f/4. Less distortion, more resolution, and about the same vignetting. I have both but on my cropper, the 17-55 is just a better lens.