switching from zooms to primes

I dont really use my zooms. my 70-300 IS usm, i do use it sometimes but am not thrilled at the output on the long end. Its just soft and looks like crap. my tamron 28-75 is pretty decent on the short side 28-50 but my canon 28-70 3.5 is just as good and was about 35$, but not 2.8 through range. My only reservation is that the 135 canon f2 might get IS in the near future or sigma might make and OS 1.8 135. I shoot a canon 5d classic. I have about 550$ to put towards a lens plus thinking about the following:
sell
tamron 28 75 =275
canon 70 300 =275
canon 1.8 50 mark I =150
canon 100 f2 =300
=1000
buy
canon 135 f2 =650
canon eosm + adaptor =225
canon 35 is (wish the 50 IS was out, i might wait for it) = 450
=1325
the 100 f2 is actually pretty nice, and produces good images, just doesn't have that little extra magic that the 135 has like contrast, color, sharpness. the 100 though is useful inside. I have fairly young kids, 5-9, i shoot baseball, school events, church events, general kids stuff. Might want to do a few shoots in the future for a buck or 2, portrait stuff, but not anything excessive. Just wondering what u thought about the switch. Thanks in advance, mike

35 IS is $550 after rebate right now.

I would keep one "general use" zoom for trips and other times you need both but don't want to bring two lenses.

burb1972 wrote in post #17330559
I dont really use my zooms. my 70-300 IS usm, i do use it sometimes but am not thrilled at the output on the long end. Its just soft and looks like crap. my tamron 28-75 is pretty decent on the short side 28-50 but my canon 28-70 3.5 is just as good and was about 35$, but not 2.8 through range. My only reservation is that the 135 canon f2 might get IS in the near future or sigma might make and OS 1.8 135. I shoot a canon 5d classic. I have about 550$ to put towards a lens plus thinking about the following:
sell
tamron 28 75 =275
canon 70 300 =275
canon 1.8 50 mark I =150
canon 100 f2 =300
=1000
buy
canon 135 f2 =650
canon eosm + adaptor =225
canon 35 is (wish the 50 IS was out, i might wait for it) = 450
=1325
the 100 f2 is actually pretty nice, and produces good images, just doesn't have that little extra magic that the 135 has like contrast, color, sharpness. the 100 though is useful inside. I have fairly young kids, 5-9, i shoot baseball, school events, church events, general kids stuff. Might want to do a few shoots in the future for a buck or 2, portrait stuff, but not anything excessive. Just wondering what u thought about the switch. Thanks in advance, mike

I agree with you on several fronts. The 70-300 is useless past 250mm. The 35 IS is a marvelous lens. Sharp as you need across the frame wide open. The 35 IS is my always-on lens for my 6D. I wouldn't sell the 100 or the 28-75. The 100 is not a 135L, but it is extremely useful, especially if you use an apsc body, also. I keep a 28-75 around, I just consider it an f/4 zoom. Better IQ than 24-105 at half the price. That is hard to beat.

I think i would keep the canon 28-70 3.5 vs the 28-75 tamron. It would free up almost 300. The canon will go toe to toe with the tamron except at not at 2.8, but canon was 35$. And the 100 is really nice, i shoot FF 5d classic, and can use it indoors our outdoors, might miss that with 135, thats why i was thinking about waiting on the 50 canon IS as a portrait lens vs the 35, 35 would give a little more distortion on portraits. but yea that new 35 IS is pretty awesome. Then the 135 on the eosm would be a 200mm plus, so it would take the place of the 70-300. Thanks for the input.

The Tamron is nothing to write home about wrt to f/2.8 and the longer end. If the Canon is better, by all means, keep that one.

i see the 135f2 nomal around the 750. may take while switch if you look at get at 650

"I'm going all primes"

burb1972 wrote in post #17330559
. Just wondering what u thought about the switch.

Shooting with prime (vs. zoom) you may find to be very frustrating when your subjects are small children who are perpetually in motion and in need of reframing to accomodate their reduced/increased subject distance from the camera!

I own and use some primes, and I use them specifically for situations where I need a aperture faster than what I can get with my zooms. If zooms could be as fast as primes, I probably would not use primes any more.

Second point - even when you are looking at nice, high performance zooms, they are not necessarily expensive than use of primes. Most zooms really can't be replaced with less than about three primes unless you are really happy cropping the hell out of shots to cover the in-between ranges.

Realistically I'd need a 24, 50 and 100 primes to replace my 24-105 zoom for example.

The thing with good quality primes is - you can take a shot pretty wide, and still crop in processing however close you need and still have good image quality. We talk a lot about zooming with our feet, but it's easier than that.

I sometimes set up in the stands for HS basketball games with my 85/1.8 and can take pics anywhere on the court and have them turn out fine. (Caution: if you shoot center-point focus, you'll have some OOF action shots because the target is so small.)

thanks for all the replies,
mike

Since you shoot sports and young kids, an all prime setup sounds like zero fun to me. I think primes are nice to have "in addition" to zooms but they don't really replace them for me - especially where sports and kids are concerned.

If I were in your shoes, I'd sell everything except the 28-75 and add the 70-200 2.8 II - only a couple hundred out of your budget and you'll have much more flexibility. You'll get great IQ just as good as the 135 (albeit a stop slower) but with IS and zoom throughout the medium telephoto range - the bread and butter range for kids and kids sports. Upgrade your 28-75 or camera or add an extender later.

Ive never really looked at a 70-200 f2.8 ii other than in samples. The cheapest I could find it was 1500$ out of stock, probably if i really look hard and take my time could maybe get it for 1400$. Which is more than all my lenses put together I finally did spend some money on the 100 f2 28-75 and 70-300 when i went to ff, but before that never spent over 100$ on any lens. Im going to sell the 28-75 because the canon 28-70 3.5 is just as good, and tops out at 4.0 on long end, and it was 35$. The 70-200 f2.8 ii is an amazing lens, probably the best zoom up to 300 mm ever. Still in the samples the 135mm looks better. My boys play baseball mostly really nothing else, so they are kinda stationary at distance. At this point ill probably sell the 100f2 and 28-75 and 1 of the canon 28-70 3.5's and get the 135 . I did the math and if i sell almost every lens i have an roll the 500 i plan on spending on a canon 50mm is that doesnt exist i would have enough for a used 70-200 ii, keep a 35$ 28-70, 50$ 19-35 tamron. Lord help me if anything happens to it.
Thanks for the input, its a maby,
mike

burb1972 wrote in post #17340524
Ive never really looked at a 70-200 f2.8 ii other than in samples. The cheapest I could find it was 1500$ out of stock, probably if i really look hard and take my time could maybe get it for 1400$. Which is more than all my lenses put together I finally did spend some money on the 100 f2 28-75 and 70-300 when i went to ff, but before that never spent over 100$ on any lens. Im going to sell the 28-75 because the canon 28-70 3.5 is just as good, and tops out at 4.0 on long end, and it was 35$. The 70-200 f2.8 ii is an amazing lens, probably the best zoom up to 300 mm ever. Still in the samples the 135mm looks better. My boys play baseball mostly really nothing else, so they are kinda stationary at distance. At this point ill probably sell the 100f2 and 28-75 and 1 of the canon 28-70 3.5's and get the 135 . I did the math and if i sell almost every lens i have an roll the 500 i plan on spending on a canon 50mm is that doesnt exist i would have enough for a used 70-200 ii, keep a 35$ 28-70, 50$ 19-35 tamron. Lord help me if anything happens to it.
Thanks for the input, its a maby,
mike

Heya,

This may be crazy, but I would suggest you not spend the money on the lens just yet, and instead, if you really want to capture your kids doing sports and other things, and again, call me crazy, but this is where the body actually becomes fairly important. I shoot a 5Dc as well, love the camera, it's my go-to full frame for what I do with it (portrait). But for sports, it has a big disadvantage in that it's not going to handle the ISO levels needed for dark gyms, while keeping a shutter speed fast enough to freeze motion (1/1000s to start). To do this, you'll be looking at ISO 6400 at F2.8 and about that shutter speed, or around there. Or, a much faster lens. Since a long F1.4 lens isn't going to happen, plus it would be slow to focus and the depth of field would produce out of focus shots pretty often in action situations, you're stuck with F2.8 in most practical cases in this budget, prime or zoom, other than one or two lenses. So while it may seem zaney, this is where I suggest you strongly consider a modern body with much higher ISO capability and handling. Full frame or APS-C, up to you. A 6D or 5D3 or 1D4 would be the candidates in my mind. Shooting at ISO 6400 like it's nothing, gives you a lot more lens options, and also keeps you shooting fast. Like I said, call me crazy. I prefer the look of the files out of the 5Dc. It's why I still shoot it with a 2nd set of shutters at this point even. But I know it's limitations and I wouldn't drag it to a basketball game and hope to stop motion with an F2.8 lens in gym light conditions, as the shutter would often be 1/250 at ISO 1600 or so, instead of where it needs to be, closer to 1/1000s.

So for the cost, a refurb 6D would be awesome, in these budget ranges. Worth a mention.

And shop an old 200 F2.8L prime (version 1) and you can get all you need for cheap, and stick to a prime.

Then throw a wide to normal field of view with fast aperture on the 5Dc for close range action.
And keep the long slower lens on the 6D (or any other modern camera with good high ISO ability) for when they're far down the court.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #17341016
Heya,

This may be crazy, but I would suggest you not spend the money on the lens just yet, and instead, if you really want to capture your kids doing sports and other things, and again, call me crazy, but this is where the body actually becomes fairly important. I shoot a 5Dc as well, love the camera, it's my go-to full frame for what I do with it (portrait). But for sports, it has a big disadvantage in that it's not going to handle the ISO levels needed for dark gyms, while keeping a shutter speed fast enough to freeze motion (1/1000s to start). To do this, you'll be looking at ISO 6400 at F2.8 and about that shutter speed, or around there. Or, a much faster lens. Since a long F1.4 lens isn't going to happen, plus it would be slow to focus and the depth of field would produce out of focus shots pretty often in action situations, you're stuck with F2.8 in most practical cases in this budget, prime or zoom, other than one or two lenses. So while it may seem zaney, this is where I suggest you strongly consider a modern body with much higher ISO capability and handling. Full frame or APS-C, up to you. A 6D or 5D3 or 1D4 would be the candidates in my mind. Shooting at ISO 6400 like it's nothing, gives you a lot more lens options, and also keeps you shooting fast. Like I said, call me crazy. I prefer the look of the files out of the 5Dc. It's why I still shoot it with a 2nd set of shutters at this point even. But I know it's limitations and I wouldn't drag it to a basketball game and hope to stop motion with an F2.8 lens in gym light conditions, as the shutter would often be 1/250 at ISO 1600 or so, instead of where it needs to be, closer to 1/1000s.

So for the cost, a refurb 6D would be awesome, in these budget ranges. Worth a mention.

And shop an old 200 F2.8L prime (version 1) and you can get all you need for cheap, and stick to a prime.

Then throw a wide to normal field of view with fast aperture on the 5Dc for close range action.
And keep the long slower lens on the 6D (or any other modern camera with good high ISO ability) for when they're far down the court.

Very best,

Awesome advice from Mal as usual.