Hi,

I just bought an Elan IIe with the 28-80 USM IV and am contemplating buying some additional lenses. First, I have a stong urge to get the Canon 75-300 USM IS lens; second for air shows and the like I was thinking of the Sigma 170-500 APO (anything Canon in that length is prohibitively expensive); and finally, I have already plunked down cash on a Vivitar 19-35 Series 1 wide angle. I originally was thinking of a Canon brand wide angle, but this opportunity appeared and I went for it.

I was wondering whether any of you pros out there (or hobbyists more advanced than me, which means everyone who is not a pro) had any comments regarding any of these lenses. What sucks? Are there better choices? Should I have taken up water skiing again instead?

Thanks for your comments.

Norm

-- Norman Witte (ncwitte@voyager.net), April 09, 1999

Answers

the 75-300 is a nice lens. the IS really help those of us too lazy to carry tripods all the time. it'll fit well with your other two lenses.

everyone wants to get LONG LONG lenses for airshows. i don't agree. if you get a 170-500 so you can get really close up on that plane, you'll get a big blurry plane. partly because 500mm zooms have bad optics and partly because it's IMPOSSIBLE to handhold a 500mm lens steady enough. 90% of my good air show shots are in the 200mm-300mm range. with a 1/1000 sec shutter speed (and good steady panning technique) i can get a pretty sharp shot at 300mm. but NOT at 500mm. that's tripod territory for sure. if you want a frame filling plane, shoot it at 200 and enlarge/crop it. it'll be better then a 500mm zoom.

i think the 75-300 is a good airshow lens. IS might help but the 75-300 doesn't have the panning IS mode. you may be able to use it by holding the camera still and waiting for the planes to fly into your viewfinder (not as hard as it sounds) but panning with IS won't work. you could get the 300 f4 IS. that's my favorite airshow lens. it has the panning IS mode and it works great. it's pretty pricy though...

-- Sean Hester (seanh@ncfweb.net), April 12, 1999.

The other lens that I would consider, is the 50/1.8. It's (one of ) Canon's least expensive lens, but it will certainly out-perform any zoom, including L glass, at 50mm. Manual focus isn't much fun, but you didn't buy an autofocus camera so you could focus manually all the time. Try one on your camera, and see what a bright image you get in the viewfinder, compared to the 28-80. It won't be much good for shots of airplanes in flight, but excellent for static displays on the ground.

-- Geoff Doane (geoff_doane@cbc.ca), April 14, 1999.