New to photography, me

[rolyrat]

Ive just been offered a Canon EOS 650 with a 300 mm lens. Is it any good? how much do you reckon its worth? It looks impressive, to me, and will be used mainly for AS photography at school.
Cheers,
Roland

[RobDickinson]

dunno bout the camera but any more info on the lens? Hard to tell otherwise, could be a cheapie or something nice.

[te51cle]

650 is a good solid straightforward reliable camera, I had one for 10 years and never had to have anything done to it, but probably not worth more than £50 at the most. Depends exactly what the lens is that comes with it but Canon's own lenses are all pretty good.

[simpo two]

Don't know the camera, but 300mm is not much use for general purpose work; you'll need a 50mm or midrange zoom as well. eBay will have loads for not much £.

[RobDickinson]

Canon's 50mm EF f1.8 is 50quid, absolute bargain.

As is the 28-105, 130 for that.

[rolyrat]

RobDickinson said:

dunno bout the camera but any more info on the lens? Hard to tell otherwise, could be a cheapie or something nice.

Its a Sigma zoom af-apo, whatever that means.

[RobDickinson]

rolyrat said:

RobDickinson said: dunno bout the camera but any more info on the lens? Hard to tell otherwise, could be a cheapie or something nice. Its a Sigma zoom af-apo, whatever that means.

Theres several 300mm apo sigmas on their product page:
www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/lenses/telezoom/telezoom.htm

It could be the '70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG MACRO' or it could be an older model (more likely), whats its zoom range?

As said 300mm is to much for everyday learning unless your a wildlife freak, if its 70mm thats prolly ok for portrait but you could add a 20something-80something to that and do fine.

[rolyrat]

Its older than any current models, i think. its a 75 to 300 mm.

Is ebay a safe place to get lenses?

>> Edited by rolyrat on Tuesday 20th December 22:18

[RobDickinson]

Depends who on ebay...

IMO if your going for this then get the canon 50mm f1.8 , not a zoom but at f2.2+ its pin sharp and 50 notes.

www.digitalrev.com or www.onestop-digital.com or somewhere..

[simpo two]

rolyrat said:

Is ebay a safe place to get lenses?

Depends on the lens and the seller. For a s/h lens worth about £100, if the seller looks genuine, you should be fine. That kind of product doesn't attract crooks. Scammers prefer new, very expensive stuff and offer it for $800USD if you pay by return.

try http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Canon-EF-28-80mm-28-80-II-zoom