City Shots; What Lens?
Discussion
Hi all,
I'm travelling to a few Asian cities in the next few months and am interested in ensuring I get the best photographs that I can. I currently have a Canon 600D with the IS 15-55mm lens. I don't have much confidence with the camera and shoot in auto 75% of the time, particularly in busy city environments.
Which lens would be recommended for all-round city photography? I'd be shooting cityscapes, night life, 'life' in both daylight and night time. My budget isn't particularly great, a couple of hundred tops.
Suggestions appreciated. Cheers.
18-55 or 15-85? Assuming it's the 18-55.
I answered this question on another forum, and got shouted down for suggesting a UWA! Something like a 10-20 (Canon/Sigma/Tamron) or 11-16 in Tokina-land.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/sigma-10-20-mm-wide-angl...
This was £185 at time of posting, so £200 is pretty close to getting one. I'm guessing the Canon version will be a little more even s/h.
Without getting too critical, all the UWAs are good lenses, with the Tokina probably coming out best (if only because it's f2.8). But from what I've read there isn't really a runt in the litter.
Now what this 'other' forum said was that you wanted a big long lens like 300mm to photograph small details on buildings. Go figure.
However, don't discount the 18-55 you already have as it's perfectly capable of getting decent images, it's more than acceptable for social settings, and it is already pretty wide at 18mm. 10 or 11mm gives you the wonderful parallax distortions (or whatever they are called).
One word of advice if you get a UWA - have a good play with it before you go away. They are fantastic bits of kit, but to get those really fun perspective shots takes a bit of use. The problem with a UWA is that in a way it's too wide for landscapes for instance (but buildings it works great). The problem with landscapes is that you don't capture distant detail, you capture lots of sky and lots of grass, and the bit of detail in the middle really is a tiny slither of land you can't make out.
UWAs are also awful for people. At the edges, faces become horribly distorted. Hence sticking with the 18-55 for social stuff.
I answered this question on another forum, and got shouted down for suggesting a UWA! Something like a 10-20 (Canon/Sigma/Tamron) or 11-16 in Tokina-land.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/sigma-10-20-mm-wide-angl...
This was £185 at time of posting, so £200 is pretty close to getting one. I'm guessing the Canon version will be a little more even s/h.
Without getting too critical, all the UWAs are good lenses, with the Tokina probably coming out best (if only because it's f2.8). But from what I've read there isn't really a runt in the litter.
Now what this 'other' forum said was that you wanted a big long lens like 300mm to photograph small details on buildings. Go figure.
However, don't discount the 18-55 you already have as it's perfectly capable of getting decent images, it's more than acceptable for social settings, and it is already pretty wide at 18mm. 10 or 11mm gives you the wonderful parallax distortions (or whatever they are called).
One word of advice if you get a UWA - have a good play with it before you go away. They are fantastic bits of kit, but to get those really fun perspective shots takes a bit of use. The problem with a UWA is that in a way it's too wide for landscapes for instance (but buildings it works great). The problem with landscapes is that you don't capture distant detail, you capture lots of sky and lots of grass, and the bit of detail in the middle really is a tiny slither of land you can't make out.
UWAs are also awful for people. At the edges, faces become horribly distorted. Hence sticking with the 18-55 for social stuff.
I've done a bit of travel around SE Asia with just my 18-55 IS and my 55-250. These were ok, but I would have loved a wider angle lens, something like the Canon 10-22 as already suggested as well as something with more depth of field for more interesting shots of people (which is why I suspect before I finish work today I will have got distracted and accidentally bought a Canon 50mm f/1.8... they seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper!).
One thing I would say though, the best thing I ever did was go on a very short (two-day) photography course and learnt how to use the camera properly - the results you'll get will be so much more pleasing once you know (up to a point) how to achieve the shot that's in your head. Before then, I'd see something, have an idea of how I wanted it to look, and shoot in auto but when I looked at it back on my PC I was never very happy with it, and got very frustrated and disillusioned by the fact that I'd spent a fair amount of dosh on a dslr and a couple of lenses and I was getting equally good (if not better in some cases) shots from my little Casio point-and-click. For not a *lot* of money I thought the course was well worth it as a starting point.
One thing I would say though, the best thing I ever did was go on a very short (two-day) photography course and learnt how to use the camera properly - the results you'll get will be so much more pleasing once you know (up to a point) how to achieve the shot that's in your head. Before then, I'd see something, have an idea of how I wanted it to look, and shoot in auto but when I looked at it back on my PC I was never very happy with it, and got very frustrated and disillusioned by the fact that I'd spent a fair amount of dosh on a dslr and a couple of lenses and I was getting equally good (if not better in some cases) shots from my little Casio point-and-click. For not a *lot* of money I thought the course was well worth it as a starting point.
Difficult tbh, as it depends on the type of shots you want.
For street shots/city photos, I love a bit of zoom as I really enjoy street shots/candids. It allows you to isolate the subject but also keep your distance (to ensure it stays candid).
My preference goes to the 70-200L, but I believe the 55-250 is well regarded. Worth a look imo.
Examples of (people) street shots:
Paris
Morocco
Barcelona
Venice
For street shots/city photos, I love a bit of zoom as I really enjoy street shots/candids. It allows you to isolate the subject but also keep your distance (to ensure it stays candid).
My preference goes to the 70-200L, but I believe the 55-250 is well regarded. Worth a look imo.
Examples of (people) street shots:
Paris
Morocco
Barcelona
Venice
jon- said:
24-105 F4 L shouldn't be overlooked if you only want 1 lens.
For £200? Where? I'll buy few!For that kind of money, with that kind of skills and confidence - Sigma 18-200 IS. You won't have to change lenses, have all the range you'll need for both - wide angle and closeups and without carrying more stuff than necessary and the quality is good enough.
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