Looking for some lens advice

I know I'm opening a Pandora's Box of answers to these questions, but here goes:

I've had the Xsi/450D (my first DSLR) for a little over a year and I feel ready to reconfigure my lens outfit, now that I'm figuring out my shooting preferences. Right now, I mostly shoot either with the kit lens (18-55IS) or the Nifty Fifty. I did buy a used EF100-300 4-5.6 USM, but find that I have nearly no use for it - it's not wide enough at the wide end and the lack of IS makes the zoom end near unusable hand held, and I don't usually want to schlep around a tripod. It was an experiment that I found educational, but ultimately unsuccessful.

When I'm not taking pictures of my kid, I shoot mostly candid portraits and some landscapes. I recently purchased the Tokina 12-24 f/4 to cover the wide end and am now looking for some better glass in the mid to tele range that will cover most common shooting situations.

In a perfect world, I'd get either the 24-105L f4 or the 24-70 f2.8 and the 70-200L, plus a couple of fast primes (35 and 85) but that's just not within my budget.

Discovering my preference for faster (I know that f/4's not that fast, but it's not terrible), and fixed aperture lenses when possible, the questions are:

1) Can I find reasonably affordable lenses (max around $500 each- retail) with reliable IQ?

2) Do I need to have some overlap in lens coverage? I've seen a number of highly rated zooms that cover a decent range (up to 135 or 200) that seem to start at 28mm (Canon, Sigma, and Tamron all make them). Would I miss those 4mm between the end of the Tokina and the beginning of those lenses?

Begin flinging advice!

Thanks a lot.

how about a Sigma 30 1.4?

Have you considered the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8? It's a very nice lens that does an excellent job for portraits, and is almost ideal for family photography. I really enjoy mine. They can be purchased used for around $300, and new for about $400. There's no IS on it, but you won't really need it at that focal length.

Keep the 50 1.8...get the 85 1.8 for candid portraits and the 24 2.8 for landscapes. Save alittle with LN used from this forum or Adorama, B & H, KEH.

when you think of focal ranges, try not to think of it purely from a numbers perspective. i will explain:

on your crop, if you are doing UWA landscape work, you can put on your Tokina and use ot for 99% of the day.

when you are looking for a standard zoom, you want it to cover a good focal range. a 28-75 may not be wide enough on your crop and you may have to be changing lenses more often than you would like to. a good crop standard zoom for your price range is the Tamron 17-50. you lose some at the long end, but it is a good zoom to mount and leave for the entire day. you wont have to lug around an extra lens in case you need to go shorter.

now the same can be said about the long end, so you really must decide.

Getting past the zoom part....

The kit lens is a good lens. You may want to add a flash like the 430 EX II. Bouncing flash indoors will change that lens completely. And then you will have a light kit with no flash for outdoors.

If you want a good indoor prime, the Sigma 30 1.4 or 50 1.4 is a good option. Buy them used so you find one with no focus issues.

In my experience, my Tamron 17-50($400) and my other Tamron 70-200($700) cover all of my zooming needs, and I don't miss the 20mm in between.

hmaren wrote in post #8638890
I know I'm opening a Pandora's Box of answers to these questions, but here goes:

I've had the Xsi/450D (my first DSLR) for a little over a year and I feel ready to reconfigure my lens outfit, now that I'm figuring out my shooting preferences. Right now, I mostly shoot either with the kit lens (18-55IS) or the Nifty Fifty. I did buy a used EF100-300 4-5.6 USM, but find that I have nearly no use for it - it's not wide enough at the wide end and the lack of IS makes the zoom end near unusable hand held, and I don't usually want to schlep around a tripod. It was an experiment that I found educational, but ultimately unsuccessful.

When I'm not taking pictures of my kid, I shoot mostly candid portraits and some landscapes. I recently purchased the Tokina 12-24 f/4 to cover the wide end and am now looking for some better glass in the mid to tele range that will cover most common shooting situations.

In a perfect world, I'd get either the 24-105L f4 or the 24-70 f2.8 and the 70-200L, plus a couple of fast primes (35 and 85) but that's just not within my budget.

You might be surprised what you can find. You can get a used 70-200 f/4L or 200 f/2.8L for about $500 but neither will have IS. If you stretch your budget you might find some other used options around $800 (17-55 IS, 70-200 f/4L IS, etc.)

Yes. I think you should look at these options:
Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 (about $400 new, $300 used)
Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 (about $400 new, $300 used)
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (about $425 new, $350 used)
Canon 28 f/1.8 (about $350 used)
Canon 35 f/2 (about $200 used)
Canon 85 f/1.8 (about $325 used)
Canon 55-250 IS (about $200 used or refurbished)

If you are asking about super-zooms (18-200mm, 28-200mm, etc.), then I'd say skip those unless you really want a single lens for everything. There is a difference between 24mm and 28mm, but probably not enough to worry about since you can always crop a 24mm shot to look like 25-27mm.

Actually, I'm not thrilled with the kit lens when it comes to sharpness and it's rather slow AF. There are also times that I find that I want to manually focus a shot and the cheap build on the focus ring can drive me nuts. Putting the Tokina on makes it feel like a different camera.

I do have the 430EXII that I use for a lot of my indoor shots, unless I have the Nifty on, in which case I can open wider and lose the flash. I have found that bouncing the flash with the kit lens does give some nice shots.

Thanks for contributing.

CosmoKid wrote in post #8641314
when you think of focal ranges, try not to think of it purely from a numbers perspective. i will explain:

on your crop, if you are doing UWA landscape work, you can put on your Tokina and use ot for 99% of the day.

when you are looking for a standard zoom, you want it to cover a good focal range. a 28-75 may not be wide enough on your crop and you may have to be changing lenses more often than you would like to. a good crop standard zoom for your price range is the Tamron 17-50. you lose some at the long end, but it is a good zoom to mount and leave for the entire day. you wont have to lug around an extra lens in case you need to go shorter.

now the same can be said about the long end, so you really must decide.

Getting past the zoom part....

The kit lens is a good lens. You may want to add a flash like the 430 EX II. Bouncing flash indoors will change that lens completely. And then you will have a light kit with no flash for outdoors.

If you want a good indoor prime, the Sigma 30 1.4 or 50 1.4 is a good option. Buy them used so you find one with no focus issues.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and recommendations. It's given me a lot of food for thought and a lot to research, test, spend, etc.

I to am sort of going thru the same thing. I am considering getting a EF-S 17-55 F2.8 IS USM for 400D. The kit lens 18-55 F3.5-5.6 is not all that good, especially once you have been using the nifty-fifty for awhile, great shots with this lens and the background blur can be very effective if needed. So i like the faster lens, general walk around zoom range, on the crop body 17-55 / 17-50 is it in a fixed faster aperture. My shooting requirements are pretty much the same as you. Kids, landscape and portrait type. However i have been talking to the people in the camera stores and on forums and the question is, are you intending going FF? If so go with 24-70/24-105 if not then 17-55 is best. I am not looking at going FF and would probably intend on getting the 7D in a few years time. So you say No i will keep with the crop, what about Tamron or Sigma lenses, a fair bit cheaper? Oh the Canon lens is definately the pick of them even though expensive, New AUD$1800-2000 and used $1300-1400 approx. So a lot of $ but it sounds like a really really good lens and the photo quality is superb. Not an `L' red ring but pretty much, so ponder ponder.

Cheers

i dont think that you NEED IS, i use mainly non is lenses right now, not saying that i wouldnt love IS, but i personally dont think that you NEED it, how did all those photogs do it back in the day without it....?

hmaren wrote in post #8638890
1) Can I find reasonably affordable lenses (max around $500 each- retail) with reliable IQ?

2) Do I need to have some overlap in lens coverage? I've seen a number of highly rated zooms that cover a decent range (up to 135 or 200) that seem to start at 28mm (Canon, Sigma, and Tamron all make them). Would I miss those 4mm between the end of the Tokina and the beginning of those lenses?

Begin flinging advice!

Thanks a lot.

1) Yes - plenty of good lenses mentioned already. Do some research and see what you like. Both tamrons (17-50 f/2.8 and 28-75 f/2.8) are excellent.

2) Not necessarily. You won't miss the 4mm in between, but as was mentioned previously, you may find 28mm is not wide enough for normal use. That's really up to you.

If it were me, I'd consider something like either tamron 17-50 or 28-75, depending on your preferred focal length and a 70-200 f/4 (w/"IS" if you can afford it). Looked used for cheaper prices. Also, the sigma 30 mentioned is excellent if you want to try out primes.

I really liked the 28-75 range when I had a crop, much less so on a FF. So, I would be hesitamt to recommend a 17-50 for a crop, but that's just me.

I don't use it anywhere near as much as I did before. It is now my least used lens.

As far as overlap... some overlap lessens the amount of times you need to change lenses, imo.

Incidentally, it's interesting to note that nobody at all recommended the Canon 17-85 IS. I've heard one or two people complain about its softness.

I think you should sell your niffty fifty and 100-300 usm, and buy the 85mm f/1.8.
Majority of the users here would recommend the 85.