My birthday is nearing and I know I would like to acquire a new lens, but I am having trouble deciding what lens I should go for. I mostly enjoy taking portraits of my kids and I own a Canon EOS 600D. I am considering looking a wide angle lens (possibly a 35mm) as my nifty fifty doesn't quite cut it in indoor situations (I often have to cram my body into weird shapes to capture the frame I want). Or perhaps I should look into a longer lens, possibly telephoto, for those times when I am shooting my kids playing sports (and maybe getting natural looking shots of my husband).
So, please, do tell me which are your favourite lenses for those situations? Thank you!!
One thing to keep in mind, you have a so-called APS-C (cropped sensor) camera, and so the "standard" fast (expensive!) zooms designed for a "full frame" camera (24-70 and 70-200) do not behave all that comfortably, certainly not as designed on the classic 35mm (full frame) cameras. At least for me. 24 is not wide enough to be called "wide angle" (let alone 35) and 70 is a significant "telephoto." Especially on your Canon with the 1.6x crop factor.
Truly, the Tamron 16-300 as mentioned by Sally @salza above is a pretty nice "super zoom" all-in-one lens. "Experts" will turn up their noses of course, but if it lacks some sharpness on the edges at the long end (it is pretty nicely crisp across the frame below about 120mm) and lens distortion and chromatic aberration at either end rear their heads, a few pushes of appropriate sliders in post-editing (Lightroom) and no one will ever know. Let me go further out on a limb and say that "sharpness" is more about correct focus and proper shooting technique anyway, and not so much about the lens you choose.
If that Tamron is too expensive, the older Sigma 18-250 will serve almost as well, at less than half the price. Smaller and more compact too.
@whimsicalgrateful I love the change of perspective that my Sigma 10-20mm gives and it's great for indoor shots of large groups too! Just have to watch out for mad distortions but this can be fun too!
@chippy1402 Yes, I have the constant aperture f/3.5. I like it a lot. A few tweaks of the distortion sliders in Lightroom will usually fix anything you don't like, or carelessly introduce...
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But, like Krista, my most favourite are my Lensbabies...! ;-p
@blueberry1222
For landscape I like the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 and I find myself using the Tokina 16-35 f2.8 more and more.
I guess that's not one lens, but I have a few others that collect dust as these ones on my camera
Truly, the Tamron 16-300 as mentioned by Sally @salza above is a pretty nice "super zoom" all-in-one lens. "Experts" will turn up their noses of course, but if it lacks some sharpness on the edges at the long end (it is pretty nicely crisp across the frame below about 120mm) and lens distortion and chromatic aberration at either end rear their heads, a few pushes of appropriate sliders in post-editing (Lightroom) and no one will ever know. Let me go further out on a limb and say that "sharpness" is more about correct focus and proper shooting technique anyway, and not so much about the lens you choose.
If that Tamron is too expensive, the older Sigma 18-250 will serve almost as well, at less than half the price. Smaller and more compact too.
I have the 10-20mm, too, and I love using it for buildings and street photography.