New body or new lens?

[fowler002]

i have a 10(coming on 11) year old canon eos 300d, been wanting to upgrade over the years but never got around to it.

Been thinking about getting the 760d, people on here suggested the 70d(which I've also been looking at) but with the £50 cashback finishing a little while back its best part of a £100 more.

Currently have a 18-55 kit lens that came with the 300d, a 10-22(canon) and a 70-200 f4 l non-is, looking for a decent walkabout lens to replace the kit lens, a macro lens and a lens for wildlife(birds).

Is the 70-300 f4-5.6 l is usm any good for bird 'watching'? Jessops currently doing a 24 month interest free on it, it's £904(the 28-300 version is little over double the price). Would be replacement for 70-200 f4 if anything.

Is the 18-135 f3.5-5.6 is stm any good? It's currently £25 cashback plus £40 cashback if bought with a 760d, no idea if you can use both or have to choose one. The 17-55 has £50 cash back but people in a previous thread said to go for the 15-85.

 

[Phal]

70-300mm is a useful range but still a bit short for birds usually unless you can get very close. 400mm or more is probably what you want to be looking at for wildlife but as you'll notice, the prices for those lenses starts to increase somewhat! The most recent 'cheapish' lenses for this are these:

Sigma 150-600mm contemporary
Tamron 150-600mm

As far as a walkabout lens, I had the 18-135mm STM and it's good but looking back now, I think the 15-85 would have been better. The 15-17mm range is of more use than the 86-135mm range generally speaking.

For macro, you can't go too far wrong with the Canon 100mm lenses. The L version has IS which is pretty handy but the image quality between the regular and L versions isn't too different if the L price tag is a bit much.

With the 70d, you might want to look for second hand ones? MPB has one for £639 so you should be able to buy privately for less if you want.

 

[fowler002]

70-300mm is a useful range but still a bit short for birds usually unless you can get very close. 400mm or more is probably what you want to be looking at for wildlife but as you'll notice, the prices for those lenses starts to increase somewhat! The most recent 'cheapish' lenses for this are these:

Sigma 150-600mm contemporary
Tamron 150-600mm

As far as a walkabout lens, I had the 18-135mm STM and it's good but looking back now, I think the 15-85 would have been better. The 15-17mm range is of more use than the 86-135mm range generally speaking.

For macro, you can't go too far wrong with the Canon 100mm lenses. The L version has IS which is pretty handy but the image quality between the regular and L versions isn't too different if the L price tag is a bit much.

With the 70d, you might want to look for second hand ones? MPB has one for £639 so you should be able to buy privately for less if you want.

Thanks for the reply, would you say the l version of the 100mm is worth ~£250 extra? Jessops have it for £635 on the 24month intrest free.

The two 150-600 you mentioned are 'cheap' at ~£900 from UK retailers,not sure about import. Either way as with the preowned 70d I don't have the money to buy without the 12month(for camera, Clifton camera do 12months but with 20% deposit on the 70d and 760d, jessops were doing 12month on 760d till start of May) or 24months(on certain canon lenses).

Tempted by the 7d2 but it's ~£1400, jessops were doing bonus £200 trade in on top of whatever your current camera is worth but that ended like a week or so ago and now it's only £100. I can't justify spending £1400(or £1300 with trade in). Canon doing cash back on certain lenses if bought with the 7d2, the 70-300 l(£165) and the 100 l(£80) are two of several.

 

[Phal]

Thanks for the reply, would you say the l version of the 100mm is worth ~£250 extra? Jessops have it for £635 on the 24month intrest free.

The two 150-600 you mentioned are 'cheap' at ~£900 from UK retailers,not sure about import. Either way as with the preowned 70d I don't have the money to buy without the 12month(for camera, Clifton camera do 12months but with 20% deposit on the 70d and 760d, jessops were doing 12month on 760d till start of May) or 24months(on certain canon lenses).

Tempted by the 7d2 but it's ~£1400, jessops were doing bonus £200 trade in on top of whatever your current camera is worth but that ended like a week or so ago and now it's only £100. I can't justify spending £1400(or £1300 with trade in). Canon doing cash back on certain lenses if bought with the 7d2, the 70-300 l(£165) and the 100 l(£80) are two of several.

Worth £250 extra? I guess it depends how much use it'll get. I don't think I'd want to be without the IS personally since I do a lot of my macro with natural light. It's always a challenge to use the available light to get the narrowest aperture for maximum DOF. The IS comes in handy for the shaky hands but obviously won't do much for subjects that move (that's where a good flash setup is handy).

You'll find that 'cheap' is relative when it comes to 400mm+ lenses hehe. The cheaper alternatives are the original Canon 100-400mm and the Sigma 50-500 or 150-500mm lenses but they're not as sharp as those new Tamron/Sigma lenses and don't even have the same reach.

The Canon 400mm F5.6 prime lens is good for wildlife. There's no IS but you can pick it up second hand for 6-700 and the image quality is pretty damn good (much better than the zooms at that price).

The 7d2 is nice but you're probably better off spending more cash on lenses.

You can either use the store credit/payment arrangements or sort out your own finances if you want. I sorted my own for my 200-400mm lens which meant I could buy it from where I wanted to You can probably get a grey market 70d body for £600 new

 

[fowler002]

Worth £250 extra? I guess it depends how much use it'll get. I don't think I'd want to be without the IS personally since I do a lot of my macro with natural light. It's always a challenge to use the available light to get the narrowest aperture for maximum DOF. The IS comes in handy for the shaky hands but obviously won't do much for subjects that move (that's where a good flash setup is handy).

You'll find that 'cheap' is relative when it comes to 400mm+ lenses hehe. The cheaper alternatives are the original Canon 100-400mm and the Sigma 50-500 or 150-500mm lenses but they're not as sharp as those new Tamron/Sigma lenses and don't even have the same reach.

The Canon 400mm F5.6 prime lens is good for wildlife. There's no IS but you can pick it up second hand for 6-700 and the image quality is pretty damn good (much better than the zooms at that price).

The 7d2 is nice but you're probably better off spending more cash on lenses.

You can either use the store credit/payment arrangements or sort out your own finances if you want. I sorted my own for my 200-400mm lens which meant I could buy it from where I wanted to You can probably get a grey market 70d body for £600 new

The 400 f5.6 is ~£900 new and on the 24 month interest free, the f2.8 version is £7500 so well out of my league

Now as the title of this thread new body or new lens? Can't afford to lay down several hundred on a lens and several hundred on a body, the third option is £300 or so on an apple watch

If buying a lens think the current priority is the walk about, while not ideal I can use the 70-200 for birds for the time being tho it wouldn't be as close up etc as a 400+. So a second hand/import 24-105 vs a brand new 15-85.

 

[Phal]

Well the 300d is getting on a bit now and with a relatively low MP sensor it's going to be difficult to crop much.

A newer body like the 600/650/700d will be cheapish but will give you more resolution to crop. The 70-200 F4L lens I have was very sharp so this would give you decent enough images to crop into. You'll struggle to get close enough for the pics you want but it'll be much better than what you have and the AF will be a lot better.

If money isn't abundant then you'll definitely be better off looking at second hand stuff so you'd need to find your own funding instead of store finance for new stuff!

 

[fowler002]

Well the 300d is getting on a bit now and with a relatively low MP sensor it's going to be difficult to crop much.

A newer body like the 600/650/700d will be cheapish but will give you more resolution to crop. The 70-200 F4L lens I have was very sharp so this would give you decent enough images to crop into. You'll struggle to get close enough for the pics you want but it'll be much better than what you have and the AF will be a lot better.

If money isn't abundant then you'll definitely be better off looking at second hand stuff so you'd need to find your own funding instead of store finance for new stuff!

Thanks again for your replies, so a new body now lens later? Bought 2x 32gb sandisk extreme 60mb/s a few weeks back from the rainforest for £11.99 each, was in prep for buying a new Dslr so that'd go to waste if I didn't get a body

Any chance of the 80d coming out anytime soon?

 

[Phal]

Thanks again for your replies, so a new body now lens later? Bought 2x 32gb sandisk extreme 60mb/s a few weeks back from the rainforest for £11.99 each, was in prep for buying a new Dslr so that'd go to waste if I didn't get a body

Any chance of the 80d coming out anytime soon?

SD or CF cards? Most camera bodys at the lower end of things will have SD slots whereas I know the old Canon cameras had CF cards so they might not be as useful as you think

I had a 650d and a 70d before and those only had SD slots. My 7d2 is the first body that I've had with a CF card slot.

A new body will be a nice upgrade from your 300d! Higher FPS and better ISO performance along with auto focus which will probably be miles better. I haven't seen any mentions of an 80d on the horizon so it's unlikely there's going to be anything in the next year tbh.

 

[fowler002]

SD or CF cards? Most camera bodys at the lower end of things will have SD slots whereas I know the old Canon cameras had CF cards so they might not be as useful as you think

I had a 650d and a 70d before and those only had SD slots. My 7d2 is the first body that I've had with a CF card slot.

A new body will be a nice upgrade from your 300d! Higher FPS and better ISO performance along with auto focus which will probably be miles better. I haven't seen any mentions of an 80d on the horizon so it's unlikely there's going to be anything in the next year tbh.

Sorry should have said sd cards, they do cf as well but those seem to be more expensive for equivalent gb.

Back in 2004 when we got the 300d the 1gb jessops own brand cf was like £50, in 2010 got 2x 4gb sandisk cfs(one a extreme iii for little under £20 and one ultra little over £10). Took the camera to America, good thing it was only 6mp camera or the 9gb worth of memory cards wouldn't have been enough.

Hmm looks like jessops are doing the 12month interest free on the 70d, it's £739 so £90 more than the 760d. Would you say it's worth getting even having missed the £50 cashback? The £50 would have been nice as it'd have gone towards the memory cards/extra battery .

 

[Phal]

I've not really looked to see how the new sensor in the 760d differs from the previous ones but the 70d is still probably better overall imo.

The 7fps (vs 5 on 760d) and decent buffer will mean you can get plenty of shots for action based photography and the AF will probably still be better although that's more of guess since I haven't used the 760d.

Two 32gb SD cards will last you plenty I would imagine. I just about filled 2x32GB cards on my 70d when I was rattling off shots at everything for a whole day at that Shoreham airshow so you should be fine for most things. A spare battery is needed for a day long event like that but that can always be found later.

Ultimately you can always go check them both out at the store to see what you prefer

 

[fowler002]

I've not really looked to see how the new sensor in the 760d differs from the previous ones but the 70d is still probably better overall imo.

The 7fps (vs 5 on 760d) and decent buffer will mean you can get plenty of shots for action based photography and the AF will probably still be better although that's more of guess since I haven't used the 760d.

Two 32gb SD cards will last you plenty I would imagine. I just about filled 2x32GB cards on my 70d when I was rattling off shots at everything for a whole day at that Shoreham airshow so you should be fine for most things. A spare battery is needed for a day long event like that but that can always be found later.

Ultimately you can always go check them both out at the store to see what you prefer

I put in a price match for the 24-105 to jessops("Indian takeaway" as it for £659), got the email a few hours ago saying its accepted. Not sure if I should go for it, got till Saturday morning to accept.

Was thinking about ordering the 70d body but looks like this morning/afternoon they reduced the price further(plus added a free strap and third party battery), however they removed the interest free option

 

[Phal]

24-105 is supposed to be a decent enough lens but it's not really the general purpose lens that's supposed to be when used on a crop unless you never want to go wider than 24mm. For that reason I can't say I've ever been interested in it and probably would never bother unless I was getting a full frame camera and even then, I'd probably go for something with sharper images like the 24-70 F2.8L mk2.

 

[fowler002]

24-105 is supposed to be a decent enough lens but it's not really the general purpose lens that's supposed to be when used on a crop unless you never want to go wider than 24mm. For that reason I can't say I've ever been interested in it and probably would never bother unless I was getting a full frame camera and even then, I'd probably go for something with sharper images like the 24-70 F2.8L mk2.

Better at double the price

I have the 10-22 should I need the wider range.

 

[Phal]

Better at double the price

I have the 10-22 should I need the wider range.

Double the price but a very nice lens! I'd only have it on FF sensor though really.

Yeah you can always cover all focal lengths with an array of lenses but the idea of that lens is to be a 'Do it all' lens and it doesn't do it all on a crop sensor.

The best walkabout focal length is the 15-85mm lens (imo) but that differs from one person to the next I guess Like I said, if you check your pics and find you never go wider then 24mm then it's not going to be an issue but I know I would.

In my opinion, the best walkabout lenses for an APS-C sensor camera are:

Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 (sharp and fast)
Canon EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 (sharp and fairly fast)
Canon EF-S 15-85mm (not very fast but fairly sharp and very flexible focal length).

Some people will prefer primes but I like flexibility so those are my choices. That being said, out of those lenses I only own the Sigma hehe

 

[fowler002]

Hmm argos has the 70d + 18-135 for ~£200 less than anywhere else, unsurprisingly it's out of stock. It was either a misprice or they not had a few left and those sold out as soon as the price was reduced.

 

[Phal]

Doh!

 

[fowler002]

The tamron lenses have a £100 cashback on them at the moment so the 150-600 is currently ~£800 rather than £900 new from UK retailers, jessops doing it for £769 after cashback(so about the price of the 70d plus 18-55 kit lens). Wish they were doing zero interest on non-canon lenses, have the money but can't really justify spending that much in one go(plus need the money in the bank to cover the usual expenses).

 

[Phal]

Sounds like a good price if you could find the cash for that Tamron

 

[Sunburn]

Camera & Lens or Just lens

Hi guys,
Looking for a little advice, currently have a Canon 7d with around 5k attenuations and a Sigma 170-500mm lens

Do I drop £2k on a Canon 100-400mm MK2?

OR

Spend £900 on the Canon 7d MK2 (body only) and get the 1st Gen Canon 100-400mm 2nd hand for around £650

Option 1 = £2k with existing 7d
Option 2 = £1.5k with New 7d mk2 & 2nd Hand 100-400 MK1

Thanks for the feed back guys.

Geoff.

 

[Phal]

Hi guys,
Looking for a little advice, currently have a Canon 7d with around 5k attenuations and a Sigma 170-500mm lens

Do I drop £2k on a Canon 100-400mm MK2?

OR

Spend £900 on the Canon 7d MK2 (body only) and get the 1st Gen Canon 100-400mm 2nd hand for around £650

Option 1 = £2k with existing 7d
Option 2 = £1.5k with New 7d mk2 & 2nd Hand 100-400 MK1

Thanks for the feed back guys.

Geoff.

The new 100-400mm mk2 seems pretty damn awesome but it's not cheap. If you don't have a problem with the ISO performance of your 7d then this lens would be a good upgrade and then perhaps you could update to a 7d2 later.

If you decide to get the 7d2 immediately, I don't think I'd buy the mk1 100-400mm unless you could get it cheaper than that. Instead I'd look at spending a little more for the tamron 150-600mm.