New lens and I love it.

[polarsusd81]

I was looking at new lenses for a while and could not yet justify a super telephoto. I have the Canon Digital Rebel and the 18 to 55 kit lens along with a 75 to 300 USM III lens. I wanted a fixed length lens that will work for portraits and other general purpose photography. I found the Canon 50 f1.8 and the Canon 50 f1.4. The f1.8 is a pretty good lens, and you can find it for about $70, but the build quality just isn't there. The f1.4 is a pretty nice lens and I can't find anything to complain about with it, but the price is anywhere from $300 to $400. Well anyway, I will let the photo speak for itself. This is my fiance's cat Diamond, taken at f1.4 1/15 second, at ISO 200. It is also resized to half the original.

Tom

[Steve Foss]

Polar:

Nice shot indeed. Good to be able to take shots indoors with natural lighting at low ISO, isn't it? My Canon 17-40 L only opens to f4, so I envy you the 1.4.

[polarsusd81]

Thanks, I really love this lens. I envy the L though. I plan on putting this lens to good use, maybe get some shots that are able to make some mulah. Hopefully by the summer, I would like to be able to get a 24-70 f2.8L. That is lens I really would like to have in the arsenal. Have a couple weddings set up for the summer already, so it may be in the works.

Tom

[zelek]

stfcatfish:

I was wondering if I could get your opinion on another Canon lens? My wife just purchased a Rebel XT and so far, we're just using that same Canon 50 f1.8 (from the older Rebel 2000 we had). We were thinking about adding a zoom lens soon. What do you think about the EF-S17-85mm F4.0-F5.6 IS?? I read a couple of reviews that spoke pretty highly of it and it can be had for $520.

[polarsusd81]

Zelek,

Do you have the older Canon 50 f1.8 Mark I. If so hold on to that lens. The 50 f1.8 Mark II is the cheaply built one that can be had for about 70 bucks. Now don't get me wrong the Mark II is a nice lens if you shoot occasionally, but if you abuse or really use it you would have to replace it. The Mark I is older, but built the same as the new f1.4 and is just a very little bit slower, but definitely nice.

Now for the 17 to 85 IS, I have shot with this lens too, a buddy has the 20D and I like that lens a lot too. The IS feature is nice, but as Steve will say, it chews through batteries a lot faster. Keep shooting.

Tom

[Steve Foss]

zelek, if I did more portrait work that would be the lens I'd buy. The IS counteracts the fact that it only opens to f4-5.6, allowing you to shoot at slower shutter speeds and still achieve sharp images. The more L glass you can get, the better the sharpness of your photography will become. As polar pointed out, IS eats batteries 30 percent faster than non IS, but I bought the optional battery grip, and that's not an issue with me.

[hobbydog]

Quote:

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As polar pointed out, IS eats batteries 30 percent faster than non IS, but I bought the optional battery grip, and that's not an issue with me.

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Not to hijack the thread but are Canons really that hard on batteries? My D70 is 2 years old now and I and the battery seems as strong as when I bought it. I can shoot my 70-200 VR all day and fill up a 1 gig and a 512 card....edit and delete between shots and still have battery left over. I can leave it in the on position for weeks at a time and go out and shoot a full day. I have only run out of battery once and that was because I forgot to charge it before going out on a day long shoot. Just wondering how many shots can you get off with the Canon using and IS lens with some reviewing and deleting as you go?

[polarsusd81]

Mine still do alright. I had to get a couple new ones this year, because the other three I had were all about 5 years old. They still hold a charge, just not too long, so I let the fiance use them in the old camera. I used them in an old Canon Powershot G2 for about 4 years. With that camera I always ran around with the LCD on, so it was tough on the batteries. But all in all, no I don't think they are hard on batteries, I think I am hard on them. I care for them, but probably not as good as I could.

Tom

[Steve Foss]

Hey Dog:

You raise a good point. It's a complicated issue with lots of factors. Here's what I do and don't know about it, along with a little perspective. Just my $.02. OK, it's REALLY turned into my $2,000.

I don't know the number of images I can capture on one pair of batteries. The only time I've ever run out of battery (didn't actually run out, just switched them out when the meter showed half charge), it was -20 (contrary to what you might read in some places, lithium-ion batteries do lack some punch in cold weather. I shoot in the frigid cold for a living, and I know it's true) and I was holding the IS on purposely, with the focus locked on the subject, waiting and waiting and waiting for the subject to make just the right eye motion. I probably had 10-15 minutes total with the IS locked on and no shooting going on. When you're shooting like that, it's far less a matter of how many frames you take than it is how long you're "wasting" battery by keeping the IS or VR activated.

Any decent digital SLR can be left in the "on" position for long periods of time without draining battery, because the decent ones all go to sleep and don't suck battery juice.

I don't know that Canon IS is any harder on batteries than Nikon VR. Maybe it is so. The anecdotal experiences we're exchanging here aren't an effective comparison. Nor have I read a direct comparison. It would be an interesting aside, but is not a key factor for me. As an action/nature/wildlife shooter, I'm far more preoccupied by burst rate, image quality and lens speed. As someone who does most of his shooting on rowdy sports sidelines and in the rocky, wet woods and along lakeshores, I'm also obsessed with build quality and ruggedness. And as a fine art print enlarger, I'm quite interested in pixel count. IF, and I emphasize the IF, all these advantages add up to a bit more battery consumption, I'll take that tradeoff every time I can get it.

The 30 percent increased consumption figure is what I got from Canon for the 100-400 L Image Stabilizer. It comes from the lens manual, which says if the IS is on for an average of 10 seconds per frame captured, battery life is shortened by 30 percent. And the bigger the lens, it appears, the bigger the IS mechanisms and the more power they consume. So it takes more juice to run my 100-400 IS than the 70-200 IS, but less than the 600 IS. What does Nikon say about increased battery consumption with VR?

As far as the batteries go, at $25 each for 1800mAh batteries (I bought a pair from a certain company a year ago and they're still going strong), cost isn't really an issue either. I have six batteries total, ranging from 1100 to 1800 mAh. And the 20D's optional grip comes with an insert that will allow the camera to use six standard AA batteries. And since my flash runs on AA batteries, I always have plenty of rechargeable AAs along. If I'm on location and shooting the happening of a lifetime, I can't afford for ANYTHING to go wrong. And any off-the-cuff shoot can turn into a happening. Plenty of pro and amateur shooters have taken images shot on what started out as casual outings, images that have brought in many thousands of dollars in profit. If that happens to me, It'd kill me to run out of battery or memory card capacity at a crucial moment, or to have a camera or lens fail. And that's the reason I won't ever buy a consumer grade SLR again, nor a lens that doesn't have the rugged "L" designation for sharpness, weather resistance and heavy build. Both brands make excellent consumer level and professional level cameras, and there are different needs for different shooters. My insistence on build quality in lenses and camera bodies will kill the budget, I know.

[buzzsaw]

Stevo breakin' it down..........

[Steve Foss]

More like having a breakdown!