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yabbiebee

yabbiebee

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jay
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Am i doing the right thing i want to get a better lens than the 18-55mm kit lens i got with my 450d. I am now ready to get a bigger lens sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 os dc.

i would look at getting rid of this 18-55 as the sigma would cover it right but ive seen people talking about the 70-300mm :bonk:

i dont have any other lens i dont think i will buy many but to me it seems this 18-200 is the way forward

1 lens to do it all or more lens to cover the range :shrug:
 
depends what you want from it. Such a wide range of focal length from fairly wide to mid telephoto in one lens will mean compromises such as distortion, softness, slow focussing or slow aperture.

Personally I'd prefer several lenses of shorter range than just one, but appreciate there are times when you want to travel light and a one lens solution is ideal
 
same as above.
I went in the same route as you once upon a time.

Buy one lens, it'll do it all. I regret it now, others think it's the best choice they have made.

It's all about what sort of photos you want to take, and how u want to carry your equipment.

My back dis-likes my hobby, but when I get home I'm glad I carried it all.
 
Well i must say when i started to look into getting my cam i didnt have a clue even now i dont think im using it to its full potential meaning its mostly set to auto :eek: but im still learning

anyway when i went into the shop t4 here is swindon they where more than happy to help me out even let me walk out the shop with the cam and lens to try. The lens on that was alot better(sigma 18-200) than the one i have now. im out in the open most of the time and it would be great to get that extra distance

i dont mind having stuff to carry around but if i start having loads of lens i feel i wont use them and they will become dead weight and theres no point in that.

i think also that as im learning photography this 1 lens would be more than i need to set me on my way
 
If you want to go the all in one route, then I would get the best I could, bearing in mind that the concept is inevitably prone to compromises. So it would be the Canon EF-S 18-200mm and I'd shoot Raw and run it through Canon's custom image enhancement software that is part of DPP. This combination of lens and clever software delivers amazingly good results.

Not sure which version you have with your camera but if it's v3.5 then automatic corrections for that lens are on it. Upgrades are free to download if you have an earlier version. It makes a big difference to images from that lens, instantly correcting CA, distortion and vignetting. Of course, it cannot work with the Sigma ;)

On the other hand, EF-S 55-250mm is a stonkingly good lens, very light and compact, for £200.
 
thanks for the input guys i would love to have the canon 18-200 but its a little out of my price range... i will settle on the sigma for now thanks for letting me know about the auto software i didnt even know about it. i have not even put a single photo on photoshop to edit it i will look into that when i get better with the cam ;)
 
ive just had a look and the software i have is 3.4 where do i find the link to upgrade it for there website ?
 
yabbiebee said:
ive just had a look and the software i have is 3.4 where do i find the link to upgrade it for there website ?
Click to expand...

Have a look here, there are links to Canon downloads and some helpful comments, but I think you may find that the version you already have includes support for your kit lens. The major change with later versions is support for new cameras like the 50D and 5D2, plus a load more lenses.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=601380

I've never downloaded it myself. I just bought a new copy of the latest software from Robert Scott Associates who handle this stuff for Canon UK http://www.instructionbooks.co.uk/ For £12 I got a complete suite of CDs and manuals for a 50D, including DPP v3.5. I also got a subscription to EOS Mag for £8 I think. The package for the 5D2 includes DPP v3.5.1, I believe.

If you want to play around with it with your kit lens, shoot at max wide angle, and at max aperture (lowest f/number). This is where the lens performance is weakest. Shoot a subject like a building with straight lines near the edges of the frame (to show distortion) and with areas of light or mid tone going right to the corners - grass or sky maybe (to show vignetting). Then try and include some fine detail towards the corners, preferably with high light/dark contrast such at branches against the sky (to show chromatic aberration). Edit: worst distortion and vignetting on the kit lens are at close focusing distance.

DPP only works on Raw files of course, but when I ran a similar pic through the lens corrections section the improvement was quite astonishing. Made me wonder why I ditched my EF-S 17-85mm in favour of the much more expensive EF-S 17-55mm :thinking: Too late now. I've ditched those files now so I can't post. Sorry.

Don't forget to include your normal Raw processing parameters to the image. If you don't normally shoot Raw, the camera will automatically import the Pictures Styles pre-sets, but you can always overwrite them.

Edit: Check these links :) From DPReview's excellent lens tests, a demonstration of Canon's DPP lens aberration correction software at work on the EF-S 18-55mm IS kit lens. It's free, takes one click, and turns your humble kit lens into L class glass*

http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_18-55_3p5-5p6_is_c16/page4.asp

Here is more evidence, with DPP applied to the 17-85mm,
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_17-85_4-5p6_is_usm_c16/page3.asp

and 18-200mm
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_18-200_3p5-5p6_is_c16/page3.asp

And for comparison, a review of the Sigma 18-200mm OS:
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/sigma_18-200_3p5-6p3_os_n15/

* Well, a heck of a lot better than you might expect for the price ;)
 
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