Portrait EF-S lens

omens · 25 Sep 2020

Canon 70D camera. Love the reach of the 18-135mm kit lens and compression effect at the tele end.. Hate the small aperture (f/5.6). Love the wide open aperture of my 17-55mm f/2.8. Wish it had greater reach.
The longest lens Canon do for EF-S appears to be the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. But I want more reach, so I guess I need to look at EF and non-Canon lenses.

What would be the next logical step in terms of lenses?

ancient_mariner · 25 Sep 2020

omens said:
Canon 70D camera. Love the reach of the 18-135mm kit lens and compression effect at the tele end.. Hate the small aperture (f/5.6). Love the wide open aperture of my 17-55mm f/2.8. Wish it had greater reach.
The longest lens Canon do for EF-S appears to be the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. But I want more reach, so I guess I need to look at EF and non-Canon lenses.

What would be the next logical step in terms of lenses?

What's the budget?

john.margetts · 25 Sep 2020

The only advantage of EF-S lenses is at the wide end of the range. Once you get to longer focal lengths the makers might as well make them with the EF mount so they do.

Non-Canon lenses are as good (or better) than Canon's lenses so I wouldn't particularly pay attention to make.

LeeRatters · 25 Sep 2020

You are going to have to go EF rather that EF-S

85mm, 100mm, 135L

tonybassplayer · 25 Sep 2020

Next upgrade I would suggest would be the canon f4 70-200

Highly regarded and (relatively) cheap as chips (very light too)

omens · 26 Sep 2020

ancient_mariner said:
What's the budget?

There’s no defined budget. This is more for personal/hobby use and not professional. I’d be tempted to go cheaper and then upgrade to a more expensive model if it’s really worth it. Either way, I’m in no rush and happy to save up.

john.margetts said:
Non-Canon lenses are as good (or better) than Canon's lenses so I wouldn't particularly pay attention to make.

Any non-Canon lenses that you would recommend for portraiture?

LeeRatters said:
85mm, 100mm, 135L

Thanks. Very helpful. The 85mm f/2.8 looks cheap enough to have a play around with. The 100mm non-L non-IS macro lens looks good although would a macro lens be suitable for portrait photography?

tonybassplayer said:
Next upgrade I would suggest would be the canon f4 70-200

Yes. Originally I had planned this as my next upgrade. I was saving up for the IS version. I just figured there might be alternatives I hadn’t thought of.

LeeRatters · 26 Sep 2020

omens said:
Thanks. Very helpful. The 85mm f/2.8 looks cheap enough to have a play around with. The 100mm non-L non-IS macro lens looks good although would a macro lens be suitable for portrait photography?

The 85/1.8 USM is a few years old now, can be picked up for a reasonable price. There was also a 100mm 'equivalent' USM although I can't recall what aperture that was, I think f/2. The 100mm f/2.8 is more than capable of portraits but iirc it's a bit chunkier/slower than the 85mm.

ancient_mariner · 26 Sep 2020

omens said:
There’s no defined budget. This is more for personal/hobby use and not professional. I’d be tempted to go cheaper and then upgrade to a more expensive model if it’s really worth it. Either way, I’m in no rush and happy to save up.

70D is crop isn't it? For upper body I'd consider a Sigma ART 50 f1.4 and for head & shoulders only 85 f1.4/f1.8 as suggested by Lee. You could also look at a 70-200 f2.8 zoom, although you won't get quite the same separation & rendering with this as a trade-off for extra flexibility. Examples of these are all in the classifieds. For used expect to pay around £400 for a prime, MkI 70-200 £500+, MkII £750+.

Hogboy · 26 Sep 2020

The best value route would be the Nifty 50mm from canon, giving you an approx 85mm field of view on your 70D, the Sigma 50-100mm 1.8 would be a flexible high quality zoom, there is not really anything else out there quite like it.
Good luck

Phil V · 27 Sep 2020

85mm 1.8 if on a budget - when we shot weddings on crop we constantly swapped it about (looking back I don’t know why we didn’t have 2.

omens · 27 Sep 2020

Hogboy said:
The best value route would be the Nifty 50mm from canon, giving you an approx 85mm field of view on your 70D

I have the version of nifty fifty that came out before they went to STM. I find the autofocus slow and clunky.

Phil V said:
85mm 1.8 if on a budget

Yes it looked like a reasonable option instead of jumping to the 70-200 f/4 IS. Do you have any images from using it on a crop body?

mortimerhill · 27 Sep 2020

Hogboy said:
The best value route would be the Nifty 50mm from canon, giving you an approx 85mm field of view on your 70D, the Sigma 50-100mm 1.8 would be a flexible high quality zoom, there is not really anything else out there quite like it.
Good luck

The OP has already stated that they want more reach than the long end of a17- 55mm lens, so that would rule out a 50mm lens.