Beginner Telephoto Lens Question

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Donity

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Brandon
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Hey everybody! Completely new to photography, just found an old camera I had a few months ago.
It is extremely old (I think), and I've been wanting to take photos of airplanes and other far-away objects but couldn't because I only have the lens it comes with (58mm)
I was trying to find a telephoto lens to buy for this camera, that could zoom in maybe up to 200 or 300mm? I don't know much, but am looking at some guides that show how much zoom I'd need at certain airports.
Anyways, the camera I have is really old, and I'll list it here. I'm just wondering if its still any good and if I can still find a telephoto lens for such an old one.
I bought it in 2007, and I think it was made in 2006:
"Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/EOS 400D DIGITAL" is what it says on the manual. If anybody can help me find a telephoto lens for this camera, I'd appreciate it.

I'm new to this form - so if I've done some thing I shouldn't have, make sure to tell me :)
 
The economic zoom for a canon crop is the canon EFS 55-250mm, which I think comes in new under £200 and can be found cheaper at reputable second hand sites like mpb.

Slightly longer, but more expensive is the EFS 70-300.

After that, you are looking at a fair bit more cash.

As for reach, look at Flickr images from the airport's you want to shoot at. Then check the exif for lenses.

As an example, I use a 150-500 at Heathrow when they are taking off on 9's. I'm less than a mile out. Your mileage will vary.
 
The 400D is a few generations old but not all that old, one of my cameras is 100 years old, 15 years is a mere youth in comparison. I still have a few DSLRs from that time & use some of them occasionally despite having newer options, the results they achieve are quite acceptable. FWIW Nothing digital is 'extremely' old, but it must be said things have moved on in the meantime. :)

I suspect the 58mm on your lens is the filter size not the lens focal length the lens you have is probably an 18-55mm zoom.
I have to agree totally with @LC2 about your affordable AF options.

If you want more than 300mm there are some cheap manual focus lenses that can be adapted to your camera. Not ideal but with aircraft you should be able to focus in advance & shoot when they reach your point of focus. These adapted lenses will be fixed focal length so you need to pick the lens for the relative size of your subject. I'd start with the options above & only consider manual options if you need to go another order of magnitude closer.
 
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Have a look for a sigma 50-500 or 150-500 , I had the 50-500 on a 400D many moons ago and it was not too bad.
The original did not have IS and was a bit on the heavy side but all in all not too bad.
If you have a look on MPB there are quite a few longish sigma's in the £200-250 range
 
Petrochemist said:
The 400D is a few generations old but not all that old, one of my cameras is 100 years old, 15 years is a mere youth in comparison. I still have a few DSLRs from that time & use some of them occasionally despite having newer options, the results they achieve are quite acceptable. FWIW Nothing digital is 'extremely' old, but it must be said things have moved on in the meantime. :)

I suspect the 58mm on your lens is the filter size not the lens focal length the lens you have is probably an 18-55mm zoom.
I have to agree totally with @LC2 about your affordable AF options.

If you want more than 300mm there are some cheap manual focus lenses that can be adapted to your camera. Not ideal but with aircraft you should be able to focus in advance & shoot when they reach your point of focus. These adapted lenses will be fixed focal length so you need to pick the lens for the relative size of your subject. I'd start with the options above & only consider manual options if you need to go another order of magnitude closer.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Then all I'd have to do is make sure its compatible with my camera? Yes, it is a 18-55mm lens, I mistyped before.
 
It's a digital camera, so one of the options that you have is to crop the image (discard the areas not required) which, in effect, will produce the same effect as using a telephoto lens.
If you use only 1/4 of the image the effect will be the same as using a 200mm lens instead of a 50mm one.

But, there's a downside, because you will be losing image quality in the process. Obviously, if you had a more modern camera then there would be less loss of image quality, but it's still something to try.
 
Donity said:
Hey everybody! Completely new to photography, just found an old camera I had a few months ago.
It is extremely old (I think), and I've been wanting to take photos of airplanes and other far-away objects but couldn't because I only have the lens it comes with (58mm)
I was trying to find a telephoto lens to buy for this camera, that could zoom in maybe up to 200 or 300mm? I don't know much, but am looking at some guides that show how much zoom I'd need at certain airports.
Anyways, the camera I have is really old, and I'll list it here. I'm just wondering if its still any good and if I can still find a telephoto lens for such an old one.
I bought it in 2007, and I think it was made in 2006:
"Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/EOS 400D DIGITAL" is what it says on the manual. If anybody can help me find a telephoto lens for this camera, I'd appreciate it.

I'm new to this form - so if I've done some thing I shouldn't have, make sure to tell me :)
Click to expand...
So this is a Canon EOS DSLR camera. Co-incidentally it's the first digital camera I ever owned, so if you look back at my very early threads on here you'll see images taken with this camera. The lens mount for these cameras is the Canon EF mount. As it's an APS-C size sensor you can can also use Canon EF-S lenses. Either one will mount and work find on your camera. The EF mount was introduced in 1987, any EF lens is compatible with any EOS body, on both film and digital cameras.

Some good telephoto lens options that you should be able to find cheaply, especially second hand are the Canon 70-300mm, of which there are various versions. The Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens is also a good telephoto option, although slightly shorter.

You can also look at options from third party brands such as Sigma and Tamron. I've shot with a Sigma 120-400mm lens for the past 12 years, you should be able to find one of those fairly cheaply second hand.
 
So this is a Canon EOS DSLR camera. Co-incidentally it's the first digital camera I ever owned, so if you look back at my very early threads on here you'll see images taken with this camera. The lens mount for these cameras is the Canon EF mount. As it's an APS-C size sensor you can can also use Canon EF-S lenses. Either one will mount and work find on your camera. The EF mount was introduced in 1987, any EF lens is compatible with any EOS body, on both film and digital cameras.

Some good telephoto lens options that you should be able to find cheaply, especially second hand are the Canon 70-300mm, of which there are various versions. The Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens is also a good telephoto option, although slightly shorter.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I think I found the lens that many of you are talking about, the Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens. I'm not going to send a link, but on mpb I found a used one for pretty cheap. Just wanted to make sure this was the right one and would be compatible: "Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS"
 
It depends how much you want to pay, and what quality you will expect.

You can buy a secondhand Sigma 70-300 APO EF lens probably for £ 100 or a Canon 55-250 IS for not much more. Or at the other extreme there are lenses in the thousands.
 
Donity said:
Thanks! I think I found the lens that many of you are talking about, the Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens. I'm not going to send a link, but on mpb I found a used one for pretty cheap. Just wanted to make sure this was the right one and would be compatible: "Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS"
Click to expand...
Your camera is EF-S so yes it's compatible. :)
 
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