On 15/6/05, Yuri K, discombobulated, unleashed: >I am new to the Canon EOS world; bought an Elan 7e for a song - need a >*short* rundown or a pointer to one on lenses please. Mostly >portraiture, people, street.
Hi Yuri, This link will be useful: <http://www.tanchung.com/canon/canonlensesmain.htm> For street, I find a good lens is the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L, although if you're on a budget, you might find even used examples too expensive. Basically, anything with the letter 'L' after it is superior quality, and superior price! Alternatively, why not something like the EF 35mm f/2 - nice and compact, and the discipline a prime lens offers can be very rewarding. Used examples do crop up on eBay. My second choice for street is the EF 24mm f/2.8 on a 1D (digital). For portraiture on a budget, find either a used EF 85mm f/1.8, or why not consider an old manual focus M42 lens and an EF/M42 adapter? It means that the lens has to be used in 'stop-down' metering mode, either in aperture-priority, or manual, but with portraiture this is no problem. You will enjoy manual focus also - something I consider essential with portraits. For instance, an Asahi Pentax Takumar 85mm f/1.9 would be a nice lens: <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7522460036&category=4688> Pentax lenses: <http://www.m-fortytwo.info/ViewAllTakumars.php> This site has a listing of many M42 lenses: <http://m42.povlab.org/site_lenses.php> This link may be useful as well: <http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-manual-lenses/> For obvious reasons, you will appreciate that Canon EF lenses are going to be most suitable, but you get what you pay for. When I migrated across from Pentax manual (MX+LX) to Canon digital (D60, later 1D2) I got myself a few EF lenses, and it became clear very quickly that only 'L' lenses were going to be of the standard I was happy with. I got the EF 85mm f/ 1.8 and sold it a few months later. It's no slouch, but the manual focus feel on it was not good enough for me, and with portraiture, that's important to me. I would love an EF 85mm f/1.2 but Rome wasn't built in a day, and I spent a fair bit on L zooms, so in the meantime I adapted a very high quality Pentax lens (SMC-A*85mm f/1.4) to EOS fit, and I love it so much now, I wouldn't dream of using anything else for faces. HTH Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________ * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
