Canon Upgrade Advice - Body Vs Lenses

The_Bulb

The_Bulb

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Richard
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Hi All, I was wondering what you all thought of the following upgrade path.

My bag currently contains a Canon EOS 30D body with Canon 28-135mm IS lens and a Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens.

I am thinking of upgrading and have been looking at the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS and a Canon 35mm f1.4 L Prime which I would hope would expand my bag and give me glass that is going to give me years of enjoyment. However, what results should I expect putting these two lenses onto a 30D body??? Is it going to be like putting a ferrari engine in a mondeo, yeah it's gonna go fast, but when you hit the first corner you are going to be in trouble!!!!!! (I think I understand also that a successful image relies heavily on the person behind the camera etc. but want to give myself the best equipment I can afford)

I suppose my question is would you keep the 30D and buy the two lenses or buy one lens and then put the other money towards a new body, say the 5D Mk11.

My initial thoughts are buy the two lenses then when I do upgrade the body I can still use the 30D with the EFS and 35mm Prime (Which could be too wide for a full frame body) and then use the 70-200 L on the new body to minimise lens changes out in the field! But when I do see the quality of a full frame am I never going to want to touch the 30d again :shrug:

To let you know I am interested in Raportage photography (weddings etc) gig photography, nightime architecture photography and motorsports. My wife and I are also expecting our first baby early next year, so will obviously be wanting to try and photograph our new baby.

Thanks in advance for your advice
 
Buy the lenses, use them on the 30D. The results will still be produced by the lens. The 30D is not far off the 40D/50D in terms on IQ so you're not going to be crippling the lens quality. You can then upgrade your body in the future.

That's my opinion...
 
Putting L glass on your 30D certainly won't be a waste and the 30D will be a better option than a 5D for your motorsport shots.
As for a full frame body consigning your 30D to the cupboard....I'm sure that won't be the case. I still have and use a 30D along with an FF body and 1.3x crop (1DII) and it's really horses for courses.

My advice is to go for the glass....it'll give you more benefit for your outlay than a body change at this time.

Bob

PS...both of your prospective lenses are excellent choices for your stated subject matter and the 35L will definately not be too wide on a 5D.....I use 24mm for landscape shooting on mine.
 
:agree:

I had a 20D and bought 2 L lenses for it.

Stood me in good stead when I got the 5D

Remember good quality glass depreciates much much less than a camera body will do
 
Totally agree with all the above advise to go for good lenses first. Get a good set of lenses to suit your photography genre and then think about bodies.

The Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS and a Canon 35mm f1.4 L are excellent lenses, I have both, and have never regretted there purchase.

The 1st Canon digital body I bought was a 20D and also the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L - I still have and use that lens whilst the body has been upgraded several times now.

As Chappers said about glass and body depreciation.
 
I'll go along with the others, buy the glass. Just remember that if you're considering going FF at some stage in the future (and with the arrival of the 5D2, Nikon D700 and Sony A900, the move to more FF cameras seems very likely), that your EF-S lens will not work.
 
:agree: with what's been said......Go for the glass :D
 
I would go with the glass, I have a 30D and still gets used alongside my other camera.

I am saying that in hind sight, as I upgraded my camera and then still ended up buying glass.....
 
Yea, the depreciation thing is interesting, I had a couple of L lenses for about 10 yrs (a 35-350 and a 17-35) and I got more than 1/2 their original cost back when I sold them recently. Try that with a 10 yr old body!!
 
Well, you'll need the 70-200 for the extra reach for motorsport (and probably then some - few motorsport subjects are close enough for that without a teleconvertor on it or some serious crop work) but to go full frame will then set you back to where you are.

Also, to get the very best out of motorsport photography you will also need a faster (preferably crop) body. A 40/50D will give you some improvement, but the big gain will be found in a 1D MkII or MkIII. But then of course the 1D is a 1.3x crop, leading once again to longer than 200mm...

The other subjects you talk about it won't make that much difference, but motorsport is a subject all apart from those...

I currently use a 30D for motorsport, I've used it a lot, so am fully aware of its shortcomings. Just depends how serious you are about your motorsport!
 
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