>Thanks for the feedback and especially thanks for the report on the >site she was looking at for purchases!
Yes, that is definitely not the place to buy from. Certainly a case of a price being too good to be true! >She's planning on using the camera as a hobby (maybe to make money >every once and a while). She wants her first lens to be something >good for taking pictures of young children (our youngest is 2) or >adults at a 5-15 foot range (portraits?). What lens would she need to >look in to for something like this? It really depends a lot on your budget. Personally for young kids and if she might want to sell photos, I would probably want to try and get a good Canon lens, because I think you might get a little frustrated with the AF speed of the Sigma/Tokina lenses (kids don't exactly stay still for long) and the image quality particularly at the high and/or low end of the scale suffers a fair amount when you go from real wide angle to telephoto. The Sigma 18-200 for instance does fairly well at wide angles, not so good at the telephoto end. Also, you'll find the autofocus on the true Canon lenses far better in low-light situation, i.e. indoors, so if she wants to use it indoors a fair amount that might be something to consider as well. The lens I mentioned, the 28-135 mm, really handles general photos nicely, good for portraits and fairly decent for indoor use and is an IS (image stabilizer) lens as well. I think it costs around $400 or so. When you find you need a bigger telephoto for more range, the Canon 75-300mm is about the same price, or you can often find an older Canon 100-300 mm used on bhphoto.com for around $200. The 28-105 that I mentioned can be had for about $200 less, but you'll really notice that missing 30mm. If that *really* isn't in the budget, Sigma makes some other lenses as well that might be good options, like a 28-135 mm I think. They have a new 28-200mm Macro as well that's not totally awful. ;-) You just have to not expect too much in image quality and AF. Another option I often recommend to people if they really can't afford a good lens when they buy the camera is to get a 50mm f/1.8 lens and then just save up until they can afford some decent lenses. The 50mm is less than $100 and you won't find many better low-light lenses than this one. It's really great anytime indoors where you simply cannot use (or don't want to use) flash. The only other lens I have that is better in low-light is my 135mm f/2.0 lens which costs about $1K! So it's a nice little lens to have in your kit regardless. And while using it you can get a good idea of how far wide and tele you will need to go when buying your zooms. Keep in mind that *nothing* short of your own skills makes as big a difference in your shots as the lens. You can have the best camera in the world, but without good glass in front, it won't make a bit of difference! --- Mary Jo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:223380 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
