Which telephoto lens to get for Canon 400D (sub-$800)

Pete D wrote:

Anyone have views on these, and which would be best for the type of
envinronment I intend on shooting in?
The 70-200 lenses are very nice, but they don't have a very long reach.
If I was going I'd take either the 70-300 (if I wanted a cheaper lens
that I could stand losing) or the 100-400 to pair with the 17-85. The
drawback with that one being no IS.
Why do you think you need such a long lens? Friends of mine on safari
have done well with much less -- the guides got them pretty close.

And there is nothing to indicate that his guides will do the same.

Long is good in this situation but I would personally go for an IS lens and
choose the 70-300mm IS.



Longer is better. With a high-megapixel 1.6 crop camera 300mm will "do"
OK but more is better. Why do you need a long lens? The answer is not
"giraffes" or "elephants" ... they are big. The answer is "small colorful
birds".

Doug McDonald

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:53:39 +1100, "Pete D" wrote:


"John Navas" wrote in message
.. .
On 21 Dec 2008 07:13:25 GMT, (Ray Fischer) wrote in
:

Stimp wrote:
Hi all,

I have a Canon 400D, with a Canon 17-85 IS lens. I'm going on safari
next Feb, and so want to get a better lens for telephoto zoom shots.

My budget is less than 800 USD (less than 600 euro), and I've managed to
find the following lenses that fit my budget:

- Canon 70-300 IS
- Sigma 18-200 DC

and at the higher end...

- Sigma 70-200 f/2.8
- Canon 70-200L USM f/4 (this is 2nd hand mint, hence the lower price)

Anyone have views on these, and which would be best for the type of
envinronment I intend on shooting in?

The 70-200 lenses are very nice, but they don't have a very long reach.
If I was going I'd take either the 70-300 (if I wanted a cheaper lens
that I could stand losing) or the 100-400 to pair with the 17-85. The
drawback with that one being no IS.

Why do you think you need such a long lens? Friends of mine on safari
have done well with much less -- the guides got them pretty close.

And there is nothing to indicate that his guides will do the same.

Long is good in this situation but I would personally go for an IS lens and
choose the 70-300mm IS.

My wife and I vacationed in Kenya in 1988. Did the game parks and
Tree Tops. I was using film then, and carried two lenses. My "long"
lens was a 200mm. With the exception of Tree Tops - where you
photograph animals at the water hole from the lodge - I used my 55mm
lens almost exclusively. The animal life is best photographed as part
of the scenery. You really aren't looking for up-close shots that
show the whiskers. You can get that with a visit to a zoo at home.

When you take those "safari" trips, you move from place-to-place every
couple of days. You travel in a Land Rover-type of vehicle that holds
four to six passengers. You really don't want more baggage/gear than
is absolutely necessary.

What blew my mind on that trip was the equipment the "birders"
brought...spotting scopes, tripods, and lenses the size of small
canons. At parks like Lake Baringo, where birders come from all over
the world, you see some of the most elaborate kits you can imagine.
These people have a different objective, though. They are "twitchers"
there to document the sighting of a particular bird. They are more
interested in being able to show that they have captured a rare bird
on film/card than they are in the composition of the photograph.

In general, the photograph album of a dedicated birder is boring to
look at. Great detail, but uninteresting other than the fact that one
shot is of a black-crested whatever and the next shot is of a
red-crested whatever. Like stuffed and mounted animal heads on the
wall, there is no sense of nature in the photographs. Just bird mug
shots.

I was taking a shot of a tree containing a number of weaver nests, and
a birder was making fun of my lens saying that I could never get a
good shot of a weaver with it. He didn't understand that it was the
tree and the nests that appealed to me.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:53:39 +1100, "Pete D" wrote:


"John Navas" wrote in message
. ..
On 21 Dec 2008 07:13:25 GMT, (Ray Fischer) wrote in
:

Stimp wrote:
Hi all,

I have a Canon 400D, with a Canon 17-85 IS lens. I'm going on safari
next Feb, and so want to get a better lens for telephoto zoom shots.

My budget is less than 800 USD (less than 600 euro), and I've managed to
find the following lenses that fit my budget:

- Canon 70-300 IS
- Sigma 18-200 DC

and at the higher end...

- Sigma 70-200 f/2.8
- Canon 70-200L USM f/4 (this is 2nd hand mint, hence the lower price)

Anyone have views on these, and which would be best for the type of
envinronment I intend on shooting in?

The 70-200 lenses are very nice, but they don't have a very long reach.
If I was going I'd take either the 70-300 (if I wanted a cheaper lens
that I could stand losing) or the 100-400 to pair with the 17-85. The
drawback with that one being no IS.

Why do you think you need such a long lens? Friends of mine on safari
have done well with much less -- the guides got them pretty close.

And there is nothing to indicate that his guides will do the same.

Long is good in this situation but I would personally go for an IS lens and
choose the 70-300mm IS.

My wife and I vacationed in Kenya in 1988. Did the game parks and
Tree Tops. I was using film then, and carried two lenses. My "long"
lens was a 200mm. With the exception of Tree Tops - where you
photograph animals at the water hole from the lodge - I used my 55mm
lens almost exclusively. The animal life is best photographed as part
of the scenery. You really aren't looking for up-close shots that
show the whiskers. You can get that with a visit to a zoo at home.

A good point. What lenses to take depends greatly upon what kind of
photos he likes to take. If he likes the broader landscape photos
then a long telephoto isn't helpful. I'd still take the 70-300 just
because there's almost always the occasional need to zoom in.

--
Ray Fischer

Ray Fischer wrote:
tony cooper wrote:

My wife and I vacationed in Kenya in 1988. Did the game parks and
Tree Tops. I was using film then, and carried two lenses. My "long"
lens was a 200mm. With the exception of Tree Tops - where you
photograph animals at the water hole from the lodge - I used my 55mm
lens almost exclusively. The animal life is best photographed as part
of the scenery. You really aren't looking for up-close shots that
show the whiskers. You can get that with a visit to a zoo at home.

A good point. What lenses to take depends greatly upon what kind of
photos he likes to take. If he likes the broader landscape photos
then a long telephoto isn't helpful. I'd still take the 70-300 just
because there's almost always the occasional need to zoom in.

It had not occurred to me you wouldn't need a long lens, being close &
showing the surroundings is great. There are still some neat effects you
can do with a long lens though like 'compressing the perspective' to
bring a distant mountain range closer in the background.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008 Stimp wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2008 PixelPix wrote:
On Dec 21, 4:54*am, Stimp wrote:
I have a Canon 400D, with a Canon 17-85 IS lens. I'm going on safari
next Feb, and so want to get a better lens for telephoto zoom shots.

- Canon 70-200L USM f/4 *(this is 2nd hand mint, hence the lower price)

No question.... the 70-200 f4 L is miles ahead of the rest! (This
lens matches the much more expensive 2.8 version for image quality)

If you find that you need more reach, you can couple it to Canon's
1.4x extender and still have excellent quality. IMHO I don't think
this combo can be beat for the price.

great thanks! I had a friend that personally preferred the high-end
Sigma over the Canon L ... but all the reviews I've read seem to point
to the superior quality of the Canon L.

I wasn't aware of the 1.4 extender either, that sounds perfect!

Following on from the original thread, I'm also considering an
"all-in-one" lens as an option for the safari trip (if I decide that
carrying a dedicated zoom and my 17-85mm is too much to bring).

(I'm going to be climbing Killimanjaro, and taking trips to Ethiopia,
etc, so bringing less is more)

Any recommendations on a good lens for zoom, that can do decent
wide-angle shots - sub $800 (600 euro) ?

I've been advised on the Sigma 18-200 DC

Thanks.

--
________________________________________
www.globenotes.com/member/peterforan/

On 22 Dec 2008 23:16:49 GMT, Stimp wrote in
:

Following on from the original thread, I'm also considering an
"all-in-one" lens as an option for the safari trip (if I decide that
carrying a dedicated zoom and my 17-85mm is too much to bring).

(I'm going to be climbing Killimanjaro, and taking trips to Ethiopia,
etc, so bringing less is more)

Any recommendations on a good lens for zoom, that can do decent
wide-angle shots - sub $800 (600 euro) ?

I've been advised on the Sigma 18-200 DC

Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Very good all-around and travel lens.
Can suffer from a bit of lens creep.

--
Best regards,
John
Panasonic DMC-FZ8, DMC-FZ20, and several others