I recently aquired an EOS 650 ( body only) I want to buy a lens for it. I was offered a 35mm- 80 mm f/4.0

Is a lens in that range a good all around lense for mostly outdoor or nature photography. is a lens with a f/4.0 a decent lens .. and If I buy an addtional lens wat should it be for the most cost effective and most versatility

-- Chad (tranquilbliss08@netscape.net), January 03, 2002

Answers

Canon's 35-80 lens has okay image quality, but it's build quality doesn't feel all that great, and the range is somewhat limited. Canon's 24-85, 28-105 and 28-135 are better quality zooms & have more range, but also cost more. Canon's 50mm f/1.8 is probably the most cost effective lens they make. It doesn't zoom & it feels cheap, but the image quality is very good and it works well in low light. Any one of those will fill the middle focal length range.

If you want another lens after that you will have to decide if you want to go wider or longer. There are several third party lenses in the wide angle, 14-35mm range that can be used well and Canon makes a very good 20-35mm zoom for a decent price.

For outdoor/nature shots you might prefer a longer lens, and I would recommend sticking with Canon. Their 75-300 lenses (all three of them) are okay lenses, but not great. The 100-300 USM is built better for more money and the 100-300 f/5.6L is being discontinued but is an optically high quality lens.

Any of Canon's prime (non-zoom) lenses are very good as well as their "L" series zooms, but you will pay dearly for them. Canon's 28- 135 IS, 75-300 IS, and other IS lenses offers built in Image Stabilization that allows you to hand hold at lower than normal shutter speeds without image blur. A very nice feature. Canon's USM lenses have a silent focus motor in them. The better USM lenses (28- 105, 24-85, 28-135, 100-300, etc.) offer Full Time Manual focusing (FTM). Another great feature. The cheap USM (and non-USM) lenses don't offer FTM).

Generally wide range zooms like a 28-200 or 28-300 have a number of optical compromises that you may or may not find acceptable. They are convenient though.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), January 03, 2002.