All in 1 Lens or 2 Lenses

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WannaTakePix

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Hi All,

The New Guy wanted to rack your brains again.

I've got a Canon 40D & a Nifty Fifty and have been looking at other lenses.

My question is; Should I go for 2 lenses or an all in one?

2 lenses being the Kit pair:
18-55mm IS II & 55-250 IS II
(costing ~£275 for both)

&

The all-in-ones options:
Canon 18-200mm or Tamron 18-270 or Sigma 18-250mm or any recommendations?
(costing £400, £350, £365 respectively)

Want to buy something soon, so would appreciate and advice.

Thanks,

WTP
 
what sort of thing do you want to take pictures of ? whats your buget ?
 
All in one lenses tend to be a compromise in image quality, especially at the lower end of the price range. The only one that I ever used that was stunning was the Sigma 50-500OS which weighs a tonne and really isn't massively practical.

If you're just talking about general fun snaps then image quality isn't necessarily massively important and certainly will be fine with an all in one. I'd always go for an all in one for family trips as opposed to carrying a few lenses. Learned from experience!!

Everything's a compromise though. You carry a few lenses but have to swap getting slightly better image quality when zoomed way in or you get an all in one and live with the limitations.
 
An 18 - 270 would cover the first three with the compromises mentioned but I think it would struggle at Sports as I would think it is not fast enough in aperture or possibly AF at the longer end.
 
WannaTakePix said:
Hi All,

The New Guy wanted to rack your brains again.

I've got a Canon 40D & a Nifty Fifty and have been looking at other lenses.

My question is; Should I go for 2 lenses or an all in one?

2 lenses being the Kit pair:
18-55mm IS II & 55-250 IS II
(costing ~£275 for both)

&

The all-in-ones options:
Canon 18-200mm or Tamron 18-270 or Sigma 18-250mm or any recommendations?
(costing £400, £350, £365 respectively)

Want to buy something soon, so would appreciate and advice.

Thanks,

WTP
Click to expand...

2 lenses ...

An all in one lens is too much of a compromise for me...
 
I also have a 40D. I have loads of lenses, but the one that is on my Camera 90% of the time is the Canon 18-200mm IS. It works well with the 10mp sensor on the 40D, but if you are thinking of upgrading the camera body to 15mp or above then you may want to consider a top of the range lens to get the best from it. I generally shoot in both RAW and JPEG. I have set the sharpening up a notch in the camera so the JPEG images are more than adequate for everyday use and I don't have faff around changing lenses and miss the shot.
 
Personally I'd always go for two lenses as I would never want to sacrifice on quality for the sake of convenience. If I want convenience I'll use my old bridge camera, although that only really gets used in places that I'm not allowed to take changeable lens cameras like Wembley Stadium.
 
Last edited:
Mandoo said:
Personally I'd always go for two lenses as I would never want to sacrifice on quality for the sake of convenience....
Click to expand...

Even the 2 Kit lenses I'm considering?
I've heard good things about them.
The only thing that's playing on my mind is that they both have rotating end elements which would made Polarising Filter usage awkward.

What do we think?

WTP
 
The question is whether the quality of the 18 - 200 / 18 - 270 is any lower than the 18 - 55 and 55 - 250. None of them are ideal for sports I wouldn't think.

Guessing you are more likely to get better quality from the two but the question really is do you want to carry two lenses around. If you don't mind then may be better to spend more on the lens that would get more use, i.e would you use a 18 - 55 range more than a 55 - 250 range or vice versa?
 
WannaTakePix said:
Even the 2 Kit lenses I'm considering?
I've heard good things about them.
The only thing that's playing on my mind is that they both have rotating end elements which would made Polarising Filter usage awkward.

What do we think?

WTP
Click to expand...

first up if you buy second hand from someone like mpb, or grey import from kerso et al , you can get as better price - the 18-55 is will be about 60 notes, and the 55-250 about £120

with regard to your issue - most lenses (at least in your price range) have roatating end elements, however ive never found this to be an issue , as you focus first , then set up your filters
 
The Tamron 18-270 (i wish i had never bought, shoulda kept my canon 28-200) has jerky auto focus & the focus ring is quite stiff, especially near the 100mm.
 
WannaTakePix said:
My question is; Should I go for 2 lenses or an all in one?
Click to expand...

The two lens solution will almost certainly give you the best ultimate image quality but IMVHO in all honesty sometimes you really do have to pixel peep to see any real difference in actual image quality.

The rest of the differences are IMVHO more down to aperture size (it could influence shutter speed, ISO and bokeh etc.) and other technical spec things like focus speed. These things do matter as the restricted aperture range of superzooms will limit your creative options somewhat and could mean that you're using a slower shutter speed and / or higher ISO.

However, if you can live with the compromises the best lens is the one you have with you and enables you to get the shot. For decades I used one lens on my Nikon SLR and when I went to a Canon DSLR I again used one lens for a couple of years and really if avoiding pixel peeping or using DoF and other things as clues I find those images very difficult to tell from similar composition shots taken with shorter range zooms or primes.
 
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