 Kathy Zavatson |
IS lens I'm looking to purchase a new lens. I'm into portrait photography (mostly children). I will also be shooting a birth in a couple of months. This is something I want to make sure I have a good lens for. It only happens once! What lens would you recommend. I was looking at the Canon 17-85 IS lens. Right now I have the kit lens 18-55, 50mm 1.8 and 85mm. I also have a quantary telephoto lens 70-300. Thanks for your help!
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Bob Cammarata |
If it were me in that delivery room I'd probably faint and get nothing but in your case, go with the 50 1.8 (assuming is a Canon and not generic). I'm guessing that it's your fastest lens and typically 50 mm's will focus from around 12" to infinity...definately within any range you'll likely encounter if you are allowed free reign. If you need to shoot the birth from an observation booth at a distance, the 70-300 might be a wiser choice...(though I would personally choose to leave ANY Quantaray zoom at home on an important shoot.)
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Kathy Zavatson |
:)...well we will know not to ask you to photograph a birth! Thanks Bob! That's the lens I was leaning towards and yes it's a Canon. I'm not crazy about my Quantaray lens and I hardly ever use it. Do you have any experience with IS lenses? Even if I don't use it for the birth I'm still interested in getting one or is a waste of $?
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Bob Cammarata |
I've never used I.S. lenses...sorry. All of my lenses are older prime Nikkors with manual focus which pre-date I.S. technology. Bob
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Pete H |
"This is something I want to make sure I have a good lens for." Ok..I know Im gonna catch hell for this, BUT, I can not remain silent. Old adage; "Good lenses are not cheap and cheap lenses are not good!" Who in their right mind would buy a Ferrari and put re-treads on it? C'Mon already! I see these postings almost every day here. "What is a good lens for 200 dollars?" I just saw a newbie the other day at my local camera store get talked into a $2,600 camera and then realizing his bank acct was almost drained, purchased a 300 dollar lens! Please! Somebody buy these people a vowel! Kathy, my response is NOT aimed at you, it's simply your question is seen here,written by many others over and over again a gazillion times, and my ire is raised. Yikes! People, people, cheap lenses are just that; cheap in almost all regards..mechanical AND visual. I do not have the where withall of Bill Gates; but I will wait and actually SAVE some extra $$$'s to get a decent lens rather than suffer the disappointment of poor optics. Whew..Ok..I now have a nose bleed from the altitude of my soap box..Wow! Pete
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Raymond H. Kemp |
IS lenes have their place in the photo community, but I see a lot of people here get confused and think that it will prevent an image from blurring to a certain point. This is true as far as camera shake is concerned, but if your shutter is slow and your subjects are moving, you will still see blurring from their movement. I love my Nikon 70-200 VR lens but I use that for photojournalism and in most cases in pretty decent light. So the VR helps maintain the blur when my lens is tight on the subject. As Bob said, you may want to bring a little longer lens into the birthing room. This will help you keep back from the delivery and enable you to get some great tight shots of faces at the time of delivery, etc. Bounce a strobe off the ceiling to help punch out some of the color. With the exception of the delivery lights pointed you know where, the room lights are usually flourescent and pretty crappy to work with. Pete, boy do I agree with you about lenses!! What people don't understand is the value and quality of a good lens. I'd rather spend $600 bucks on a body and pair it with a $1,200 2.8 28-70mm ED Nikkor lens. Cuz' I'll guaran-ass tee you that I'll get a better quaility image with that quality of glass as opposed to hooking up a $300 hunk of junk kit lens to a $2600 body. Kathy, good luck with the shoot and let us know how everything goes! Ray
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Kathy Zavatson |
Thank you Pete and Ray for responding. I understand what you are saying Pete. I know a good lens is very expensive and am not looking for a cheap lens. I found out that a cheap lens is not worth it the hard way. I just wish the guy at Ritz would have told me that when I bought my quantaray. Thanks Ray for the lighting input.
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