Canon 40D and which lens?

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mrbez

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Hi Guys,

I am looking at buying a Canon 40D body, and I am looking at suggestions for a great starter lens, for perhaps around £100.

Thanks.
 
To be honest, £100 is not a lot, even second hand, probably an 18-55 kit lens or a 50mm 1.8 'nifty fifty' would be a good start for your budget. I would have thought that spending on a 40d you should perhaps try to budget a little more for a lens.

Andrew.
 
MrCraigBerry said:
Hi Guys,

I am looking at buying a Canon 40D body, and I am looking at suggestions for a great starter lens, for perhaps around £100.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

When you say starter lens, what is it you want to photograph?
Obviously the 18-55mm IS is a decent enough kit lens to get you going but it has limits that are reached pretty quickly.
 
There is only one new lens you can get for under £100 - 50mm f/1.8. Which will be extremely limiting as an only lens. 18-55mm IS is far more useful and a really good lens for the money, about £130 I think.
 
Would I be better looking at a 500d with kit lens or a nikon d5000 with a couple of lenses for around the same price?
 
TBH - if you are getting the 40d you wouldn't go far wrong with the sigma 18-200 as a start.

Oddly enough the folks responding to this thread bought my 40d (ned.c - thanks matey) and 18-200 sigma DC OS (Canonite (cheers Al)). This combo wil give you a cracking body and a decent walkabout / general purpose lens.

The lens shifted at £165, and I would suggest that this is reasonable startup costs, once youve got a 40d.

just my $0.02

F
 
You can do great thing with a 18-55mm IS std kit lens! I have seen some amazing shots from that lens!
 
If you're limiting your budget on glass, why dont you go for a cheaper body to begin with? 30D or 450D will still be a good body, but you can get better results with a 30D and a good lens than a 40D and a poor lens. Likewise the 400D or 450D. I would seriously think about looking at lifting your budget for glass, possibly to around the £200 mark and that would put you in the market for a Tamron 17-50 F2.8 non VC, or 17-85mm if you wanted the extra range. I think Sigma also have some options in this price bracket.
 
The lens is as important as the camera in many ways.

I'm assuming you have around £500 to spend for camera + lens.

In your situation I'd go second hand and get a 20D and maybe a 28-135IS and a 50mm f1.8 all second hand. Will give you a good range to get going and you can experiment with DOF with the 50mm. Or get the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 which has a great rep, and f2.8 but obviously less range than the 28-135.

Nikon, Sony etc I imagine will have similar options but not familiar with those brands...

Good luck

Al
 
I'm in a similiar situation, I was spending most of my evenings looking around at what I could get I didn't want the "entry" level like the canon 1000d with kit I wanted a little better.
In the end I've (all being well) Spent around £50 more that 1000d RRP and mangaed to get a nice looking 30d and a Sigma 17-70mm 2.8 - 4.5 DC Macro...
I've been debating whether an older "prosumer" level would be better than a new "entry" level SLR everyone I've asked has said the 30d would be the better option.
I was looking for a kit lens or nifty lens, however I spent more money and looking into it I haven't limited myself too much with the lens I got. Ok for macro slightly better "all rounder" and read a lot of comments that it's better than the kit (which unfortunately is what you'd be looking at)

End of the day it's down to what you want to use it for I wanted the camera initially for a holiday and needed a good camera +lens that could suit a wider variety of shots and situations... So although I spent more money I'm very glad I didn't limit my options

tl;dr : Buy whats suitable and be flexible (to a point) with the costs!
 
Okay guys, let's say that I can stretch to 600 in total, what kind of lenses should I be looking at? So 200 on a lens.
 
I had the Sigma 17-70 on a 40D and was always delighted with the pictures it produced. Useful range, light and very sharp. Recommend.
Should find a good used one well within your budget.
 
Remember that one lens will never be enough, you will want soon want more, so try to pick something that you will still use when you have a few lenses in the future.

The nifty fifty is a great lens, the 18-55mm IS is good and versatile, how about a 55-250mm IS ?
 
ned.c said:
I see a 40d with 17-85 lens on here at £615, might be a good starter kit/option for you?
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=245029
Click to expand...

I have the 40D and 17-85mm is my general walkabout lens, IMO its a good lens, not outstanding in sharpness contrast or saturation but it will give you a great starting point. It has IS, USM and a good build quality, the 17mm is a resonable wide angle on a crop and again the 85mm is a decent zoom. If you are starting off in the world of DSLR, which I presume you are.

I will give a big shout to a prime with a nice large aperture too, on a budget the 50mm 1.8, it will give you a great staring point to playing with a large aperature and what the benifits of it can be.
 
I owned the 40D and Sigma 18-200 OS, had to sell em due to needing to fund a car when my daughter was born. Regretted it ever since but needs must.

I've since bought the 18-200 OS again as Ian pointed out, and for the majority of the things I do it'll not be off the camera body. It's great as a general purpose all day lens, covering a good range (29-320mm)and being able to focus faster, and closer at 200mm f6.3 than its Canon & Tamron rivals.
I took this dragonfly shot on the 18-200 at the long end, wide open with OS on:
2924704620_fbd55c9a53.jpg


I'd agree too that you'd be better off spending more on the lens/lenses and just getting a 2nd hand camera body. You can get a 20D for £175 or a 30D for £250, that'd leave a lot of budget for a lens you're likely to keep for years.
With the pace of camera body technology it's easier and cheaper to buy the best lenses you can afford and just replace the bodies with a newer 2nd hand model.
 
I've seen a few good looking 450D's on eBay that are cheaper.

Would I be better with a 450D or a 30D?
 
MrCraigBerry said:
I've seen a few good looking 450D's on eBay that are cheaper.

Would I be better with a 450D or a 30D?
Click to expand...

Difficult to say. Depends what you look for in a camera.
Roughly speaking:
+ for 450D: Live view, bigger+better screen, more megapixels, lighter, newer model, better CPU
+ for 30D : Better build and ergonomics, faster FPS, ISO 3200, CF cards

See comparison and reviews here:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/com...e&cameras=canon_eos30d,canon_eos450d&show=all
 
I take a lot of portrait photos so I mainly use the 50mm 1.8 and love it.

I do however find it very limiting if I try to take photos that are not portrait and then tend to use the kit lens.

I do have a Sigma 70-300 however this is hardly on the camera because it does not reall fit into my main interest.
 
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