Lens help

amumonamission

amumonamission

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Name
Sarah
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Hi I have 2 lenses for my camera, an 18-55mm and 75-300mm both Canon.

I take a lot of photo's of my children, other peoples children and sometimes motocross.

The only thing is I hate having to change lenses all the time as I find sometimes that the 18-55 doesn't zoom in enough and the 75-300 is too zoomed in. Is there a lens that can do it all?

Also I don't really understand how the size in mm relates to how near or far the subject can be in order to be in focus.

Thanks for any help you can give me on this. :)
 
There are lenses described as superzooms, that can go from a relatively small focal length to a much larger one, but often the optics are a compromise in order to do so, and the IQ may not be so good as from a lens with a more modest focal range.

The size in mm does not determine how close or far something needs to be in order to be in focus, but will determine the level of magnification at any given distance.

If what you are asking is how do you get more in focus, a wide angle lens with a smallish aperture will provide this for the general type of shooting that you are talking about.
 
This may help with your mm question http://www.tamron.com/lenses/learning_center/tools/focal-length-comparison.php

Also have you considered a bridge camera? There are meant to be some decent ones out there with good zooms that probably cover the range you require? Lenses wise try Tamron do 28-200/300 for example, not sure on quality. Do you know what range you use most?

The Canon 28-135 has a pretty good range and is decent, though obviously not to 300.

Al
 
Sarah, I started off with the same two lenses as you, and had the same issue

Went for the Canon 28-135 as a walkabout lens.

On the plus side, its supposedly better quality than the other 2.

On the down side.... its much heavier.
 
If you have the budget, a high quality zoom with wide focal length range is the 28-300L - even that is not as good as seperate lenses covering the same range.

Thinking laterally, you could always pick up a second body and have one lens on each.

Phil
 
You need to be working with two (identical) bodies - then no - or far far fewer lens changes - and fewer shots missed.
 
Lenses with the most range, and hence less lens changing, are the superzooms, such as the Canon 18-200. It will do everything that your other two lenses can, but of course it won't go to 300 which you might miss for the motocross. It also has IS which I think you'll find useful.

Image quality is pretty good compared to your current lenses, and you can improve it still further by shooting in Raw and running the files through Canon's DPP software that came free with the camera. I think you'll need the latest version to include that lens in its custom database, but that's a free download.

There are also others from Sigma and Tamron but the Canon is better quality all round.

These lenses tend to be quite big and heavy, as well as expensive, so if you can forego a bit of reach and keep the longer zoom for the motocross, perhaps the smaller and cheaper new Canon 18-135 is the one for you. Just reading between the lines and thinking about it for a moment, that might be the one to look at first. I would pop along to Jessops or somewhere and have a go, see how you get on.
 
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