buying a lens-suggestions?

I have a 30d and I want to buy a new lens for her. I am looking at spending uner $600 cdn and I want a multi purose lens-good in low light, good up close for macro, portraits, the occasional,wedding, hiking, all kinds of stuff. I am a one stop shopping kinda gal on a budget.

Any suggestions for this purchase and more importantly why would you recomend the lens you suggest.

thanks for the help!

Denise

Such a lens doesn't really exist. Probably closest would be the "walkaround/kit lens replacement" contenders from Tamron, Sigma or Canon like the Tamron or Sigma 17-50 2.8's, the Tamron 28-75 2.8, perhaps Canon 17-85 IS. All involve some compromises and you need to decide what is most important to you. What focal lengths do you use now of your kit lens? IS and large aperture both deal with low light but do so differently - IS won't stop a moving subject. Lots of posts about any of these on this forum.

One possibility that isn't a "do it all solution" but doesn't overlap too much with your kit lens either would be the Canon 60mm macro - 2.8, super sharp, macro, good portrait range. An 85 1.8 would be a similar argument though better low light, non-macro.

As a fellow Canadian I'd recommend shopping at http://www.bhphotovide​o.com/ or similar as prices better: e.g. 28-75 Tamron 349 US vs. 539 CDN at Camera Canada.

I like your pictures on your site and you obviously have talent and interest. Given that, I suspect that you'd get more out of a lens that does a specific thing well than a "jack of all trades".

Just my opinion, I could of course be wrong.

how about the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro???

can do macro, has nice portrait range (on the 1.6 crop), not very wide, but perhaps just enough to get that landscape shot while hiking.

it doesnt do it all, but it's the closest thing to what you're asking for IMO...

Well, both the Tamrons and Sigma offerings say "Macro" in their names - but as users would attest, they are hardly true macro lenses.

To the OP's original question, apart from these lenses, there are a lot of 17-50/17-70 lenses that have come out recently - all these are 2.8 lenses and so are slighly better for low light. A good idea would be to get a 50/1.8 with the lens so that you have some extra low light capability if its really important.

What is it about the lens/es you currently own that you dislike?

PixelChick78 wrote in post #2264089
I have a 30d and I want to buy a new lens for her. I am looking at spending uner $600 cdn and I want a multi purose lens-good in low light, good up close for macro, portraits, the occasional,wedding, hiking, all kinds of stuff. I am a one stop shopping kinda gal on a budget.

Any suggestions for this purchase and more importantly why would you recomend the lens you suggest.

thanks for the help!

Denise

you dont say what lens you have already

I would suggest the 50mm 1.4 and/or the 85mm 1.8 - get you off on the right track