From my limited experience so far with the 7d and 17-55mm lens, the biggest thing I feel is lacking is 17 just isn't wide enough for me. I think for a crop sensor I need wider to shoot architecture and for some landscape shots.

So I am sort of looking at the Canon 10-22 and Sigma 8-16. Anybody have thoughts on those lenses?

The canon overlaps my other lens so only 10-16mm will be the new range, and it is also a bit more expensive. However I think having max 22mm probably makes it more versatile for walking around with just 1 lens. Also it takes 77mm filters just like my 17-55.

The sigma is quite a bit wider, less expensive, and gives full 8-16 as new range for me. However it has that bulb front so can't take filters (without rigging something). It's also a half stop slower I believe.

I think I'm leaning toward the canon. I suppose the only way to know for sure is rent each one

I'm going to Tibet soon. I have a canon 500d (rebel something or other in the states) and I'd like to pick up some lenses. I've been meaning to pick up a 50mm and from what I read, I'm best off buying the canon one? I'd also like to get a wide lense. How wide of a lense should I go? Again, from the little research I did, buying a canon lense sounds like the way to go if cost is no issue. Should I be purchasing something like the 70-200 suggested above? I'm pretty new to photography and don't know much past basic exposure/histograms, but I'd like to go prepared. Are there any reasons I shouldn't buy a nice lense (possible future camera choices?).

Skier, how will you travel in Tibet? If you intend to do a lot of trekking/walking, then not carrying extra weight would be the main reason to not buy additional / nice lenses.

Otherwise just go for it.

I've heard good things about the Canon 10-22 as the wide lens.

This sounds vaguely familiar

One other lens to consider might be the Tokina 12-24mm f/4.

The Canon is f/3.5-4.5 and the Sigma is f/4.5-5.6. I think it is f/5.6 by 12mm. If so, the Canon is one or one and a third stops faster at 12mm, and will be 2/3rds stop faster when zoomed all the way in. IIUC, all three lenses are intended for APS-C bodies only. On Canons, that means you won't be able to use them on a full frame body, even if you are willing to crop out the vignetting of the smaller image circle. (This is an area where Nikon users have an advantage.)

On your Canon APS-C body, you will get an EFL of 12.8-25.6 mm with the Sigma, 16-35.2 mm with the Canon and 19.2-38.4 mm with the Tokina.

I have no experience with any of these lenses. The widest zoom I've used gives me an EFL range of 18-36mm. I've sometimes wished I had something wider.

Despite mentioning it, I think I'd eliminate the Tokina from condideration because it isn't really adding a whole bunch of width, and its image quality may be the worst of the three.

Image and build quality are reported to be good on both the Sigma and the Canon. So it seems to me that the choice comes down to speed and filter versatility vs. width and $ savings. Unless you really need that extra 3.2mm off the effective focal length, the Canon might be the better choice if you can afford it.

The Canon EF-S 10-22 mm f/3.5-4.5 USM is also shorter and lighter than the Sigma AF 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM.

Can you elaborate on this at all? If you are willing to crop the vignetting, what limitation do you run into besides that makes it unusable?

fwiw, when I was shopping for a wide angle for my 7d the discussion was between the Canon 10-22 and Sigma 10-20(these were suggested here as well as many photog. threads comparing the two for the same use). I didn't even know the Tokina or the S.8-16 existed tbh.

the canon EF-S lenses and the sigma/tokina mentioned are for crop-sensor cameras only (7d, 40d, etc) and don't fit on the full frame bodies (1D, 5D, 5DmII, etc). I think something about the mirror in the camera body would hit the lens.

What to choose as a set of lenses depends on more than just your camera body and your destination. Important considerations are budget, intended subject matter and size and weight limits. What you already own should also come into the decision. You might want to consider your experience level, and your likely future relationship with photography.

The best set of lenses for you covers the focal length ranges you will need, at sufficient speed for the lighting you will have, while fitting your budget and camera bag. That's four different parameters. We don't live in an ideal world, so practical considerations mean that you will almost certainly have to compromise on one or more of those factors.

If you are just starting out in SLR photography, and are not certain that you will be making a long-term commitment to the hobby, it might be best to limit your initial purchases to a small number of inexpensive lenses.

EF-S lenses present another consideration. These lenses are designed to work with APS-C bodies, including your 500D. They are less expensive and lighter than comparable EF lenses, and are also available in shorter focal lengths. The latter is an important consideration because the crop factor of your APS-C body increases the effective focal length of lenses by 1.6 times, making it harder to get a wide angle view. The downside is that EF-S lenses will not work on Canon's full frame cameras.

Why do you want a 50mm lens on a Canon APS-C body? Everybody who wants to get serious about photography probably should have a normal prime lens. A normal lens is one that approximates the field of view of the human eye. This varies, however, from person to person. One way of approximating it is to choose a focal length that equals the dagonal of the image sensor. (Other approaches add a few mm to this). The diagonal of full-frame sensors and 35mm film is 44 mm. That's not a focal length that's made. The closest common focal length is 50 mm, which was developed as a compromise between true normal and better image quality given limits on lens production at the time lenses for 35 mm camersas were first being develped. That's why 50 mm lenses are so common. On a Canon APS-C body, with its 1.6 cropping factor, the image diagonal is 27 mm, so a 28 mm or 35mm lens would be considered "normal" for it, while a 50 mm would be a short telephoto. 28 mm would be most normal, and 31 mm, if it was made, would come closest to approximating the field of view of a 50 mm lens on 35 mm film.

Do you already have any lenses at all? If so, do you plan on taking it/them with you as well as new ones?

A prime consideration when travelling is weight and size of equipment. If you are going to be taking long hikes, or if you are backpacking , you should consider limiting the bulk of your equpment. There are a few different approaches.

One is to get one versatile but compromise lens, and take only it. For this strategy, get the EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS. It is 163 mm long and masses 595 g. It's large zoom range covers wide to long telephoto and built in image stabilization helps hand-held shooting. Its compromises are that it is a slow lens - it doesn't do well in low light, and it's image quality is not the highest. For travel snaps, these limitations don't matter very much.

A second approach is to get the same lens but add one or two more (prefereably lightweight) lenses to cover one or two of the three situations it doesn't handle: ultrawide focal lengths and low-light. (For your trip you are unlikely to need to cover the third situation: very long telephoto.)

Large-scale landscape (e.g. mountains) photography and architectural photography is often best on an ultra wide angle lens. (Ultrawide angle is sometimes considered to mean a focal length no greater than the small dimension of the sensor. On your camera that would be 15mm.) If you are going to get to the mountains in Tibet, I'd say it would be ideal to get an ultrawide lens. On your APS-C body, that means getting a lens specifically designed for shorter back focus distance, like the EF-S 10-22 mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (90 mm, 385 g) or the SIGMA AF 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM (106 mm, 545 g) lenses that Bostaevski was looking at. Shooting ultrawide on an APS-C body means committing to a lens that won't be usable on a full-frame camera.

Zoom lenses tend to be slower, heavier and more prone to distortion than prime lenses. To shoot in low light you can get a heavy and expensive fast zoom, or you can get one or more primes. Consider small fast primes for shots in low light, such as the EF 35 mm f/2 (43 mm long, 210 g) or the EF 50 mm f/1.8 II (41 mm 130 g). If you are wiling to pack another 100 to 260 grams then consider one of the EF 28 mm f/1.8 USM (56 mm, 310 g) or the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM (51mm, 290 g) instead. Of these four, the 35 mm is the slowest but more versatile focal length on your camera body, the 28mm comes closest to being a normal prime, and the 50 mm f/1.4 handles the lowest light.

If you are resigned to changing lenses anyway, and don't mind more weight, you could save some money, increase focal length range, shoot in lower light or up your image quality and/or presere upgradeability to full-frame, by replacing the 18-200 mm lens with two zoom lenses that cover the range.

Possible combinations include:

• EF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS and EF-S 55-250 mm f/4-5.6 IS. Slightly cheaper and extends zoom range.
• EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 USM and EF 75-300 mm f/4-5.6 III. About the same price, loses image stabilization (IS), but gains 50% more zoom range and usable on full-frame, cameras.
• EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM and EF 70-200 mm f/2.8L IS II USM. Costs more than 5x the price, loses IS for the shorter focal lengths (where it is less important), big and heavy, but gains the ability to shoot in lower light, better image quality and usable on full frame cameras.

There are other possible combinations as well. For someone just starting out, I don't think any of these combinations is better than the single lens, unless you already own one of these lenses or something similar to one of them. Even then, I'd consider selling it and buying the 18-200 mm.

More advanced photographers sometimes use a set of primes rather than a couple of zooms. This is primarily for image quality reasons that matter to professionals or very serious amateurs. While each prime lens will be smaller, lighter and faster (and maybe cheaper) than either zoom, together they will probably weigh and cost more than a pair of zooms. I wouldn't recommend this approach to a beginner who is travelling.

Canon offers 5 different 70-200 mm lenses with varying features, priced from $710 to $2,500. They are all high quality L series, big and heavy. The more expensive ones offer Image Stabilization, or wider aperture (faster, for lower light) or both. The particular 70-200 lens Bostaevski chose was to handle low-light shooting he expected to encounter on his trip, such as indoor family gatherings and shooting in the rainforest.

The only reasons I can think of not to buy a nice lens are cost, size, weight and the increased risk of theft. Lenses don't depreciate in value as much as camera bodies, nor do their specs improve as fast, so lenses tend to be longer term investments than bodies. If you decide you don't want a lens any more, you can probably sell it in good condition for a large portion of its original cost.

I'd also add it may be worth consideration to just rent the lenses. I rented that 70-200 2.8/L IS II USM for 3 weeks for less than 1/10th the cost of buying it new I think I paid a total of $275 for the 3 weeks, which included the cost of shipping both ways, and insurance. While that lens was awesome and I expect someday I'd buy it, I discovered I would rather purchase an ultra wide angle next, before purchasing a telephoto.

Wow, great post, thanks. If you're ever in London, let me know - beer is on me. That answers my questions about what I should be getting and why. This is my current plan (I have no lenses currently):

-18-200mm (looks to be about £350)
-8-16mm sigma (looks to be about £430)
-something for low light, perhaps a canon 28mm (about £400)

I think that these should cover my varying subject matters (landscapes, villages we pass through, and the people in my group). We will be trekking, but will have sherpas for our main bags so I don't think weight is too much of an issue.

I guess it feels like if I stick with photography I'm lighting money on fire (save the resale values) buying lenses (and the 500d for that matter) that could eventually become redundant. As you said, another option I could do:

-Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 (£1k)
-Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 (£1650)
-Sigma 8-16mm (£430)

Which leaves me with just the wide lens that only fits my camera. I'll have to think about it.

BTW, I'm not sure if you have seen this, but I stumbled upon this http://lenshero.com/ and thought it was great minus some annoying interface flaws.

Just spend half the day reading this topic, awesome. Plan on buying my first good camera soon but I'll do another few days of research before deciding which one.

Here a few of my favorite pictures from trip to Indonesia. Unfortunately they are all taken with my €50 camera so not quite as good as some of the pics here.

I spent a day walking around Valparaiso Chile taking pictures of the abundance of graffiti. I can't seem to keep my hands off the saturation/clarity sliders! any thoughts?


1) closest to out of camera. The only thing I really added was a bunch contrast
2) +100saturation. it one was rather faded
3) no added saturation but +100contrast

I've done a lot of research and a lot of thinking and I've realized that I'm most interested in travel photography at this time and I'm not hugely keen on lugging around a bag of lenses when I explore a place (this trip, among others, partially excepted). I do have a couple questions though. If I ever upgraded to a full frame camera, I think that the 24-105 F4/L would be a pretty ideal lens for me, however I would need a wide angle lens for my current camera. I think I would also need a wide angle with the 18-200 lens, but what about getting just the Canon EF-S 15-85mm though? I've read that the extra 3mm makes a difference and the image quality is supposed to be a lot better than the 18-200. Am I going to want the extra width of a 10-22mm or the 8-16mm lens? Am I going to regret not having something longer (All I've used is the 18-55 that came with my camera, but I've never found myself lusting after extra zoom toooo often)?

On your current camera, the 15-85 mm lens would have the coverage of a 24-136 mm lens on a full frame camera. So the question is, is 24-136 mm EFL wide enough and far enough? The answer, ofc. is "it depends". What it depends on is mostly your chosen subject matter and how much control you have on shooting position relative to subject.

Personally, I'd want to have more focal length on each end of the scale. I can live with the 18mm EFL wide end I currently have, though there are times I find myself wishing I had more width. What I started with gave me 27-300 mm EFL, and I found I was missing a lot on the wide end, so my second lens brought me down to 18 mm EFL. I should mention that I found the width lacking more often for architectural exteriors and interiors than I did for landscpes. This is partly because, when inside or on narrow street, one cannot always adjust shooting position as much as one needs to get the shot with a narrow lens. OTOH, I haven't got any mountain range landscapes. 24 mm is a fairly common prime lens focal length, most often used for landscapes, so it would not be a disaster to have nothing wider.

It is the long end that I think I would miss even more. When I am travelling, I like to take photographs of the indigeous wildlife. The 300mm EFL I have is barely enough, but I don't want to lug a long telephoto while travelling, so I put up with it. (this is an advantage of havin a cropped sensor body.) The longer focal range also means I am able to capture details that I can't get close to, a frequent problem when travelling. Finally, I like to have something around 200 mm for headshots. OTOH, 136mm is adequate, if not ideal, for portraits.

24-105 mm on a full frame camera gives a field of view similar to what your 18-55 mm lens gives you on your current body (29-88 mm), though it goes a bit farther on each end of the range. Again, you might be OK on the wide end, but I think you'd find the long end lacking.

You're quite convincing and have certainly left me with more questions than answers. I even did some googling on my specific (and similar trips) and found conflicting advice, but mostly it seems that I probably want something on the longer end and the less weight i carry the better.

I'll be buying an ultra wide angle lens and probably an 18-200mm + a 35mm/f2 prime. I am awfully tempted to swap the latter 2 for something like 17-55mm/f2.8 and the 70-200mm L glass (though uncertain which model).

Thanks for the help, it's quite tough buying lenses without a clear idea of one's needs.

Those are quite similar to my first three. It's a good way to start out, I think. Next on my wish list is a 70-200mm f/2.8 with stabilization. I want if for photographing stage shows and other indoor events, but it's not too likely to go on vacation with me.

If you do, you might as well go all the way and get the f/2.8L IS II USM. The longer lens benefits more from the IS, and you'll find the faster lens useful for indoor sports, or stage shows, indoor goup shots and low-light long distance shots.

Compared to the 18-200 and the 35 mm pairing, these two would be 3.7 x the cost, 2.6 x the mass, larger, and you'd need to change lenses more often. OTOH they give better image quality, tighter depth of field, work in lower light, and are both usable on a full-frame camera body.

When one is not sure of one's needs or of one's future in the hobby, it seems to me to be prudent not to invest a lot up front. (I'm the antithesis of baller ) The ability to travel light also argues in favour of the 18-200 mm. There is also the question of one's skill and experience level. Do you know enough to be able to realize all the advantages of the more expensive lenses?

Remember, another solution might be to rent, if your trip isn't too long in duration. Or rent before you go, to try out different choices before making a purchase decision.

No matter what you end up choosing, you will be making a compromise. You will get some good shots, but your choice will also mean you will miss out on some opportunities. There is no perfect solution.

A few from my Madeira trip. Very happy to go there with my lightweight GF1 kit, although mostly just used the 9-18mm UWA.

#1 Panorama from Pico Ruivo do Paul


#2 From Pico Ruivo do Paul


#3 25 Fontes


#4 Ponta da San Laurenco


#5 Frog

This guy said he thought about taking pictures, maybe on an island somewhere where he could discover an insect that nobody had seen before. He also brought me a little karma, as indicated on his guitar case. When I went to take his picture, I noticed the lens hood was missing from my 35mm. I traced my steps back a few blocks and found it laying next to a wall. I also found out that if you turn the hood another maybe 3 degrees, it will click onto the lens. Duh, me.


Street singer by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

This is Kyle. He's from Pennsylvania and he rocks a mean violin. His girlfriend stopped while I was talking to the above player (Jerry, I think his name is) and she took me to meet Kyle. She was camera-shy, so I couldn't get a shot with the two of them.


Kyle from PA by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

This guy was doing the best based on what I could see in tips. He's got a bit of showmanship, plus he does a good job making eye contact as people walk by. Something tells me that's part of why he's making more money.


Diet Lightning by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

This guy reminds me of a weird cross between Michael Moore and Judah Freelander. He's out of work right now, but he plays in a local band with some guys and does street stuff as well.


Judah Freelander? by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

The adult is too wrapped up in his work and cell phone call to pay any attention to this performer, yet the kids at least acknowledged his presence.


Someone's paying attention by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

When I first saw these guys, I wondered what the deal was. I later stumbled upon the state mock trial competition taking place, so these guys are potential lawyers. Why can I see them working in Vegas?


Mock trial meets street singer by IABoomerFlickr, on Flickr

I asked a couple of the performers if it surprised them that people just walk by and don't really pay attention to it. Sadly, they said they weren't surprised. Maybe people should find the time to stop and appreciate the little things like a brief musical distraction.

Just bought a Nikon D90

Slowly but surely learning the controls. Just a quick question on what PC software to use, the standard Nikon transfer/view software or are there better options?

I haven't even tried the software that (I think) came with my canon 7d. I bought Lightroom 3 at the same time as the camera and have been using that. I'm very happy with it so far.

Here is a video I watched that made me decide to get Lightroom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB2ctqaZ_xk

Works great, tnx

I'm sorry, I missed this post earlier.

AFAIK, the mount is designed in a way that prevents one from mounting an EF-S lens on a full-frame camera. You can hack the lens by sawing/filing some bits off, to get it to mount, but then you have another problem (and a void warranty).

The 'S' in 'EF-S' stands for 'short'. EF-S lenses have a shorter backfocus distance and are designed to work with EF-S bodies, which have a smaller mirror box. IOW, the back of the lens is designed to be closer to the sensor. If you hack an EF-S lens and put it on a non-EF-S body, the mirror might collide with the back of the lens when the lens is zoomed out.

Thought I'd post a couple more pics from Thailand and Malaysia. Almost all shot with my rebel Xsi and Canon 17-40mm L



Gunung Mulu Nat'l Park in Malaysian Borneo



Random shed in Mulu



Post sunset colors, Krabi, Thailand



Thai fisherman, Koh Phangan, Thailand



Fire dancer, Koh Phangan



Rocks after sunset on Koh Phangan, the last picture my camera took before I dropped in on the pavement

Those are great. I really like the random shed one. How much/what kind of work did you do on that post-processing?

Hmm if I remember correctly that was a 3 exposure HDR (-2,0,+2) merged in photoshop. Besides the usual tinkering in HDR pro I burned the shadows of the clouds a little bit and and did some high pass sharpening on the shed.