hi im new and have a canon 700d and would like some help on lenses to buy etc

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mr snap

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H I I bought my first camera a canon 700d and would like to know what lenses would be good for certain things under £200 second hand or new

Portrait lens?
Wildlife lens ?
Landscape lens ?
Macro lens ?

Any help would be truly and utterly appreciated :)
 
danny_bhoy said:
You could tick off portrait and landscape work by getting the Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 - I've owned a few copied and at 17mm it's great for landscapes and makes a great portrait lens at 50mm. The constant 2.8 is a huge plus point too. You should be able to easily pick up a used one within your budget.
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Thank you :)
 
You could get a Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 Di VC USD lens which is a great lens at the prices you can get them. If you can get close enough to wildlife, the combination of your body with this lens does very well. I posted some bird photographs a while back that were taken with a 700D & the Tamron lens.
If you search for 'waders from Lanzarote', you can see what it's capable of in good light obviously.
 
wardy07 said:
You could get a Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 Di VC USD lens which is a great lens at the prices you can get them. If you can get close enough to wildlife, the combination of your body with this lens does very well. I posted some bird photographs a while back that were taken with a 700D & the Tamron lens.
If you search for 'waders from Lanzarote', you can see what it's capable of in good light obviously.
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cheers I check it out now mate
 
If you could stretch your budget a bit maybe try and find a second hand Canon 17-55mm 2.8 - I've had one for a few years and its a cracker!
 
Hi, I got the 55-250mm STM zoom lens for my 700d. Think it's £200 at Currys/PC World with £20 cashback. I think it's a superb lens for the price.

Paul.
 
thanks for the info people I will check them all out and finds out the best prices etc :)
 
I would be inclined to go against the flow here and suggest you get a kit lens first off. Park macro and long-range wildlife for a while and a kit lens will be able to do everything else - especially if it is a super zoom covering (say) 18-135. It won't be great at any of the things, but it should be a capable all-rounder and until you're more practised with your photography it will do "enough".

Cheaper long zooms are, unfortunately, usually fairly poor quality, so that's why I've suggested leaving the long-range wildlife stuff until you're sure you want to dabble there. It's an expensive hobby!

Macro is challenging for a beginner - you'll often need to manually focus and a lot of the techniques aren't really translatable to other types of photography. Conversely, landscape and portrait and some wildlife is far more about light and composition, which are guidelines worth learning for all of those things.

Buying better or more lenses won't make your photography better, it'll just cost you more, give you more gear to cart around and cause you the "shall I use this or this or that?" dilemma more often. Keep it simple - one lens first, learn how to use it and your camera and then come back to us and you'll be in a position tell us what lens you want next and why (y)
 
sorry mate I disagree with saying to miss the wildlife thing because that's why I bought the camera in the first place so that lens is the one I want most but thanks for your advice I agree I should just practice with one lens or maby two and I know loads of lenses don't make you a good photographer but iv been told its more about the lens you use than it is the camera and I'm pretty sure I believe that
 
mr snap said:
sorry mate I disagree with saying to miss the wildlife thing because that's why I bought the camera in the first place so that lens is the one I want most but thanks for your advice I agree I should just practice with one lens or maby two and I know loads of lenses don't make you a good photographer but iv been told its more about the lens you use than it is the camera and I'm pretty sure I believe that
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Fair enough - you know what you want to use the camera for! In that case you will need the kit to help you get it.

Unfortunately, long-lens wildlife photography is expensive. If you want a decent long lens then you're looking at between £500 and a grand for a reasonable (but not great) one and that's second hand. Alternatively, you can get a cheapy one but go into any such purchase with your eyes open and realise you'll probably (and potentially quickly) discover its limitations and want something longer/faster/sharper. Just to put it into context, a top long lens will be between five and ten grand, although you certainly don't need one of those! For us amateurs, you can get 80% of the shot with the reasonable ones mentioned earlier, but you will miss more shots and the typical quality will be lower. A cheapy one will be between £100 and £200, which is within your budget. Just don't expect to keep it for too long...

Put that against portrait or landscape photography: a very good lens for each can be had for between £50 and £100 a piece and you're likely to still be using the lens as a go-to for years to come. That's why I recommended parking long lenses for a bit, but if that's what you want then you will need to bite the bullet!
 
pjm1 said:
Fair enough - you know what you want to use the camera for! In that case you will need the kit to help you get it.

Unfortunately, long-lens wildlife photography is expensive. If you want a decent long lens then you're looking at between £500 and a grand for a reasonable (but not great) one and that's second hand. Alternatively, you can get a cheapy one but go into any such purchase with your eyes open and realise you'll probably (and potentially quickly) discover its limitations and want something longer/faster/sharper. Just to put it into context, a top long lens will be between five and ten grand, although you certainly don't need one of those! For us amateurs, you can get 80% of the shot with the reasonable ones mentioned earlier, but you will miss more shots and the typical quality will be lower. A cheapy one will be between £100 and £200, which is within your budget. Just don't expect to keep it for too long...

Put that against portrait or landscape photography: a very good lens for each can be had for between £50 and £100 a piece and you're likely to still be using the lens as a go-to for years to come. That's why I recommended parking long lenses for a bit, but if that's what you want then you will need to bite the bullet!
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Really appreciate your help it means a lot and some bloke iv been speaking to around my way his using a sigma 170-500 lens and his shots are great and that's not to dear second hand but I'm new maby I think there great and use more experienced photographers might think different but anyway thanks for your help and if I had five or ten grand I be next to a pool with a cocktail in one hand soaking up the sun :)
 
mr snap said:
Really appreciate your help it means a lot and some bloke iv been speaking to around my way his using a sigma 170-500 lens and his shots are great and that's not to dear second hand but I'm new maby I think there great and use more experienced photographers might think different but anyway thanks for your help and if I had five or ten grand I be next to a pool with a cocktail in one hand soaking up the sun :)
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Good sense of perspective! me too, for what it's worth ;)

My best advice - if you're set on trying long lens stuff - would be to buy a cheaper lens that is second hand and do plenty of research not just on the lens but also what prices it has been going for and how that's changing over time. If you buy a lens which is likely to be updated with a new model soon, the value will go down, so you can mitigate that by buying an even older generation of lens (assuming it's compatible with your camera). Quite often older lenses simply have different coatings on them (that technology seems to be changing quickly) and if you're using a tripod then you can save a bundle by avoiding the stabilised versions of some lenses.

Eventually you may well outgrow your lens, but there's a good chance you get an awful lot of what you paid for it back when you sell it again - if you've done your research carefully. Which means you were basically renting the lens for a period of time for next to nothing!
 
pjm1 said:
Good sense of perspective! me too, for what it's worth ;)

My best advice - if you're set on trying long lens stuff - would be to buy a cheaper lens that is second hand and do plenty of research not just on the lens but also what prices it has been going for and how that's changing over time. If you buy a lens which is likely to be updated with a new model soon, the value will go down, so you can mitigate that by buying an even older generation of lens (assuming it's compatible with your camera). Quite often older lenses simply have different coatings on them (that technology seems to be changing quickly) and if you're using a tripod then you can save a bundle by avoiding the stabilised versions of some lenses.

Eventually you may well outgrow your lens, but there's a good chance you get an awful lot of what you paid for it back when you sell it again - if you've done your research carefully. Which means you were basically renting the lens for a period of time for next to nothing!
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Very good point and trust me I will do my research before I buy my next lens I'm very careful with money and what I spend it on I like to get a good deal or I'm not happy lol ... very good information cheers paul :)
 
If you want a long lens for wildlife your best bet will be the Sigma 150-600c. It's an amazing lens with great IQ and can be had for £700 new which to be frank is an utter bargain.
 
odd jim said:
If you want a long lens for wildlife your best bet will be the Sigma 150-600c. It's an amazing lens with great IQ and can be had for £700 new which to be frank is an utter bargain.
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cheers I think I will probly be going for a sigma lens cheers jim
 
+1 for a Sigma lens - absolute bargain price for a top class lens. For wildlife photography it fits the bill so well. Make sure if you do buy it that you get the dock as well as its an invaluable piece of kit for the extra £39. If you look around, there are quite a few places offering the lens & dock as a package which makes the dock half price.
 
If its wildlife then the sigma 150-600c is a good choice. To be honest if your camera came with a kit lens then stick wit it for a bit
 
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