Making the switch from a film SLR to dSLR

[sarboo]

Hello

I'm packing away my good old Zenit 11, and buying a Canon 40D. For someone who has not much knowledge of anything apart from the manual focus lenses that I had for my Zenit, it's a bit bewildering!

Which lens should be at the top of my list? My budget is £300. I tend to shoot 'everyday' street scenes, portraits, sometimes landscapes. Nothing fancy.

I've tried to read up about it but I'm getting more and more bamboozled :bonk:

 

[dod]

something like the tamron 28-75 F2.8 or the sigma 24-70 F2.8 might suit you?

 

[sarboo]

Thanks I just had a brief look at some reviews and noticed that people mention having to send the lenses back to have them fixed even though they're new - is this a common occurrence with all lenses?

*newbie*

 

[Woodsy]

At a guess, (as i'm not sure where you have seen this, and in what context...) I would have thought it is to get them rechipped so that they work on difference camera bodies? I could well be wrong however. The sigma 24-70 is a cracking lens, and I have heard nothing but good words about it

 

[Slapo]

Thanks I just had a brief look at some reviews and noticed that people mention having to send the lenses back to have them fixed even though they're new - is this a common occurrence with all lenses?

*newbie*

AFAIK, Canon mount lenses have to be reverse engineered, because Canon doesn't sell licenses (or they're too expensive).
So sometimes it happens that a model doesn't AF or meter well, probably due to an earlier version of firmware that got into production and was found... worse than expected later on.

They probably have to do that with Nikon too, but it seems the 3rd party Nikon teams work better or Canon is more difficult to reverse engineer.

I think only Pentax either issue licenses or they give them away for free, as I don't recall anyone with a Pentax complaining about a Sigma or a Tamron.