I’m getting my wife a dslr, and I’m thinking about adding a telephoto lens.
There’s a 75-300mm and a 55-250mm. What is the difference, in terms of what you can do with these?
I’m getting my wife a dslr, and I’m thinking about adding a telephoto lens.
There’s a 75-300mm and a 55-250mm. What is the difference, in terms of what you can do with these?
Frankly, I wouldn’t choose either if these.
A wide-angle lens is much more useful than a telephoto, unless one shoots a lot of nature or sports photographs. So, for a first lens, I’d look at something like this (I love this lens).
I have a 70-400mm zoom, and I rarely use it (but I keep my 18-200mm zuperzoom on my D90 all the time).
ETA: what camera are you buying her? What kit lens does it come with?
Hrm, I think she has specifically said that she’d like a telephoto lens before… but “wide angle” now also sounds familiar to me…
Those lenses are fairly close in range, so the quality and aperture are much more important when deciding. You also haven’t mentioned what camera body you are putting the lens on, which will change the effective focal length if you are on a crop sensor camera. The extra length (250 vs 300) isn’t very noticeable but the short end (55 vs 75) is more apparent. What other lenses do you have? You may be duplicating lenses so it might be less important.
Which lenses are you looking at and which camera body will you put them on? These are all purpose lenses so you don’t have to change lenses often. They are often of just average image quality since the zoom range is so big.
Camera I’m looking at:
—Canon EOS Rebel T3 (it comes with an 18-55mm lens.)
Lenses I’m looking at:
—Canon - 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Zoom Lens (under product details it specifies this is a “telephoto” lens.)
—Canon - 55-250mm f/4-5.6 Telephoto Zoom Lens for Select Canon Cameras
My wife’s status as a photographer:
—Amateur, with some ambition as a hobbiest, and with clear documented evidence of talent.
Current Camera: None. (She had an SLR but it got irreperably damaged a couple years ago and in the intervening time we have not been financially secure enough to buy a real camera.
My budget: $700 is stretching it to say the least but…
ETA: If need be I’ll put up links to the product details pages. I’m looking at two packages and FSR the page for the package doesn’t provide a direct link to the page for any part of the package other than the camera… so I have to go look up the parts individually for more information.
Also ETA: A photographer friend of hers has already sort of “signed off” on lenses of this type as being adequate to my wife’s current needs given budget restrictions… but I figured I’d get all the information I can that people think is relevant.
From what you said before it looks like maybe I should get the one that goes down to 55mm if only to close the “gap” between the lens that comes with the camera and the second lens that comes in the package…
I think you’re underestimating the usefulness of a telephoto. My own shooting splits about 55% 24-70mm range (full-frame sensor, or 35mm film), 40% in the 70-200mm range, 5% other, and I don’t do sports (anymore) or nature. Stylists differences come into play here.
Between those two lenses mentioned (and I’m assuming you’re going to get some sort of kit glass with the body you’re buying, which will most likely be in the 24mm-70mm range, or 18mm-55mm on a crop-sensor camera, so you’re wanting a telephoto to compliment it.) Sorry, where was I? Between those two lenses, I would need more specifics. What lenses precisely? What’s their maximum aperture? How are you planning to use them? I would most likely just go for whatever has the better optics. The focal lengths there are pretty similar, so it’s not going to make that much a difference in practice.
As the others have mentioned, I’d find the more wide angle lens an advantage unless wildlife or sports are on the menu.
Many of my subjects are family groups and it’s often impossible to “just back up” a little.
With the 18-55mm kit lens, the 55-250mm zoom would be an OK choice.
But… You might want to see if there is a kit with this (18-200mm) lens.
I have a Nikon, and I use the Nikon equivalent all the time. There are people who bad-mouth these types of lenses, because they tend to have distortions and possibly poorer image quality than other zooms, but they are incredibly convenient, and in my experience, are capable of excellent image quality. Also, not having to change lenses can make the difference between getting the shot, and missing it.
I see you’ve updated. I would go with the 55-250mm Canon IS. This one. Everything I’m skimming through online about these two lenses points to the 55-250, plus it fills in your zoom gap seamlessly.
ETA: I agree with beowulff. An 18-200mm is an excellent choice for your typical hobbyist photographer, as an all-in-one type of lens. In fact, I’d be tempted to go body only on the T3 and get the 18-200mm for someone who expressed interest in a dSLR.
I wouldn’t worry about “closing the gap” between 55 and 75 mm; she’ll never miss that. She might, however, someday have need of the 300 mm long zoom, so I’d go with that one. In fact, that’s exactly what I do have: an EOS Rebel with the included 18-55, and a 75-300 that I added later. I do wish I had a really wide lens to round it all out, but I deliberately chose to get the long zoom first.
Opinions seem to be divided
She’s not the sort who likes to participate in the selection of her own gift. But she also is not the sort who would feel any compunction about afterwards trading the thing in for something else if I got it wrong. That’d be no problem for either of us. So maybe I’ll just close my eyes and go eenie meenie miney moe…
One thing comes to mind: She really really likes taking extreme closeups of natural subjects (plants, bugs, little animals, human skin, desks, dice, so I guess it’s not always “natural” subjects…) Will that matter to the choice of lens? Or is that the kind of thing the 18-55mm that comes iwth the camera is made for.
Sorry, I know nothing about cameras…
I highly recommend this site:
YES.
None of the lenses mentioned have good macro capabilities. If you want to get a lens that can close focus, you need to specifically look for this feature.
Yarg. That looks perfect.
But now we’re looking at $900 total, and that’s not including the card or (what is unnecessary but probably kind of nice) the bag…
f-numbers are aperture somethingwhatsits right? The 18-200 linked to appears to cover even more of a range there than either of hte packages I was looking at.
You guys are making me sad now.
Anyway TMI
Ah okay, now I know. Thanks for that!
ETA: I remember now. Her old camera, we had the lens that came with it, and a telephoto lens, and a “macro lens” was next on our list…
OK, those F-numbers indicate the maximum aperture (size of opening of the diaphram in the lens) of the lens. The lower the number, the more light it can gather, the heavier and more expensive the lens (for its focal length.) When you see a range, that is only in the case of zoom lenses. So, if you see f/3.5-f/5.6, this means at the widest setting, f/3.5 is the maximum aperture, and at the most telephoto, f/5.6 is the maximum aperture. You generally don’t want a wide range here. When you get to the really pricey zoom lenses, they have a fixed aperture, usually f/2.8 (or f/4 in the more affordable models). This means your maximum aperture is constant throughout your zoom range.
All these lenses will have all the other f-stops up to (usually) 22 on them. The f-number on the lens only indicates the lens’s maximum aperture.
Okay, I think I have decided:
I’m just going to get the camera with the 18-55mm included, and suggest we set-aside a “lens budget” which she may use to buy whichever lens she likes whenever she likes.
This’ll work.
I mean, you can do something with the 18-55mm, can’t you?
(For feminists out there (and I am one) who may have detected a bit of patriarchalism in this post, our financial arrangements have much more to do with attitudes toward math than with anything else mkay? )
Yes, the 18-55 is a perfectly serviceable lens. She’s get good use out of it and it will help her decide what she’s looking for in a second lens.
It’s kit glass, so it’s not the greatest optically in the world (but it’s not bad, either), and the f/3.5-f/5.6 maximum aperture leaves a bit to be desired, but that’s probably the most useful focal range for day-to-day photography (on a crop sensor camera such as the T3.) It could use being a hair wider on the wide end (like 14-15mm), but that’s about it as far as the zoom range goes.
Okay, thanks for all your advice guys.