Canon EOS lens advice please

[cheesemonster]

A friend is selling a Canon EOS digital camera cheaply, but without a lens. I'm tempted to buy it but would want to purchase a good quality fast lens to use with it. It seems that the 50mm/1.2 USM retails for £1200! However I've looked on ebay and there are lots of 2nd-hand manual 50mm/1.2 lenses designed for film cameras going for £150 - £300. Some of the descriptions suggest they are compatible with digital cameras, some say use an adapter, some don't mention digital at all. As I don't have much experience with canon and am still relatively new to SLRs. Can anyone advise on what lenses are suitable for the EOS range and whether I should be content with just manual focus?

[mr moto]

Have a look here...http://www.cameralabs.com/lenses/Canon_DSLR_lens_listing.shtml
and here....http://nobell.org/~gjm/photography/lenses.html

[Boxer6]

Have a look here...http://www.cameralabs.com/lenses/Canon_DSLR_lens_listing.shtml
and here....http://nobell.org/~gjm/photography/lenses.html

..... and go and buy a Nikon instead!

(Sorry - couldn't resist!)

[potatojunkie]

EOS digital cameras are compatible with the EF and (depending on the model) EF-S range of lenses. I think all of the old manual film-camera lenses are FD-mount, so you'd be looking for an FD-EF adapter.

Actually, let me know if you find anywhere that does them cheap.

As far as I'm aware Nikon DSLRs are backward compatible with all of Nikon's back-catalogue of lenses without the need for an adapter. On the other hand, they're not as good.

[cheesemonster]

I'm still confused - 1 of Mr Moto's links says that you should avoid FD-EF adaptation and that using non-Canon lenses works better than using old Canon ones!

There are plenty of Nikon NIKKOR 50mm f/1.2 AIS Manual Focus Lenses going for under £400 on ebay...so allowing for manual only and metering issues if I buy one of them and one of these I can happliy snap away with a Canon 300D?

[Lucky Poet]

I'd tend to go with a modern lens myself I must admit, just so I could still use autofocus. Not such a problem with an old style prism focusing screen, but a bit of a bastard with a cropped sensor DSLR's plain one.

The 50mm f1.4 seems to be well-regarded, for £300-ish:
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/159-c ... rt--review

[potatojunkie]

I'd tend to go with a modern lens myself I must admit, just so I could still use autofocus. Not such a problem with an old style prism focusing screen, but a bit of a bastard with a cropped sensor DSLR's plain one.

Friend of mine's having the same problem, and she's not even using giganto-aperture lenses. Focusing manually at f/1.2 is going to be quite a headache.

[Late to the Party]

the ones you're seeing on ebay will indeed be the old FD mount. Nice lenses, if you're happy to work fully manually and invest in an adaptor etc. On the whole, I'd recommend the EF 50mm f1.4 - it's still damn fast and it's excellent quality. Sigma also do a more modern design with the same specs but is slightly heavier, slightly bulkier and slightly more expensive.

If they're out of your budget (the canon version is around £300 new) then try the Canon EF 500mm f1.8 - much cheaper at under a ton, still fast and on the whole pretty good optically but the build quality is not even remotely in the same league. For my money, the 1.4 is the best compromise. I have one and I use it and it's always been good enough for me (and I can be a fussy sod sometimes).

[Late to the Party]

Aye. Late to the Party indeed. Should check when the thread was last active before wasting five minutes replying.

D'oh!

I'll be in the corner talking to myself.

[Doorstop]

[BrigitDoon]

I'll be in the corner talking to myself.

What, all three of you? There's not enough room.

[Sharon]

More Canon lens advice and or recommendations wanted.

I currently have a 5D and the 24-70mm f2.8L lens, which I love, but does have its limitations in zoom and wide angledness.

I am pondering another lens, although am unable to prioritise between wide and zoom.

I was eyeing up the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L, both are pricey little beasts... but are incredibly well reviewed.

Any recommendations of equally good alternatives, given I have only ever used the one lens I have at the moment!!!!

Or does anyone have a similar lens I could borrow for a day to try out???

[Late to the Party]

I have the 70-200 f2.8 IS L which is the bee's knees! Can't fault it, and there's a slim chance that you might be able to pick one up second hand as they just released a new version of it (don't imagine it's all that different but there's always someone out there with more money than sense). The image quality is stunning and the IS is very handy in ow light. At 200mm you' be looking for shutter speeds of 1/160 at least to avoid camera shake, which even with f2.8 isn't always easy to get.

If you don't shoot low light often then there's an f4 version of it that my good friend owns. The image quality from it is also stunning, and it's about half the size and weight of the f2.8 version and is significantly cheaper. There is also an approximate equivalent to the 16-35 you listed: the 17-40mm f4 L. I use it when I'm out for some landscape photography and again think it's brilliant. You're loosing a stop compared to the 16-35 but it's much cheaper and a lot lighter.

If you want to stick to the 2.8 lenses then Sigma offer cheaper alternatives to all the canon lenses. Not quite as good quality but not really that far off it in some cases. Well worth checking out. I have played with their new 70-200 f2.8 and was suitably impressed (though I wasn't offering to swap it for my Canon version).

[Late to the Party]

17-40 f4: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Revi ... eview.aspx
or http://www.canonlensreview.com/ultrawid ... Review.php


70-200 f4: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Revi ... eview.aspx

Sigma alternative: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Revi ... eview.aspx

[Sharon]

Dougie, that you for your input, that does actually help. Well it makes it clear that to be considered is the cost, quality & weight (therefore likelihood to carry it). hmmmm