Decisions on a 400D

[ej159]

Hello,

I'm looking at getting a EOS 400D but I'm unsure about which lens(es) to buy.

I'm going off on a college trip to the Pyrenees later on this year and I want to be able to do some good wide-angle landscapes as well as some macros on local flora and fauna.

I could buy the camera without the 18-55mm kit lens and get a telephoto macro lens for under £100 (I've heard the Tamron 55-200mm macro isn't bad) but I've heard that the kit lens is pretty shoddy.

I could go out and buy body only and then buy a wider wide-angle (suggestions) and the Tamron. That's costly.

Or... I could buy a wide angle to telephoto lens (15-100mm macro if such a kind of thing exists)that covers it all but may hurt my bank balance even more and might not be as good.

I have about £550 max to spend on Camera and lenses.

Please can you help me?

Thanks

 

[Howski]

To be honest when I bought mine the lens kit was only about £20 extra and although it is by no means great - its usable for that much extra. I'm sort of in the same boat lens wise and having looked in to I've been told that the Tamron has the slight upper hand quality wise in that price bracket. However with that said a competitor has the Sigma 18-50mm F3,5-5,6 DC & 55-200mm F4-5.6 DC for £142 + delivery which is what I'm considering.
-How.

 

[ej159]

That looks good actually. I believe you can get filter adaptors that would allow you to use the same filters on both - not that that's a major consideration. Any recommendations on bags and "armour"?

 

[J1234]

That looks good actually. I believe you can get filter adaptors that would allow you to use the same filters on both - not that that's a major consideration. Any recommendations on bags and "armour"?

Any bags from Lowepro or Tamrac. They have a huge range of different ones.

 

[v0n]

However with that said a competitor has the Sigma 18-50mm F3,5-5,6 DC & 55-200mm F4-5.6 DC for £142 + delivery which is what I'm considering.
-How.

Sigma 18-50mm is complete rubbish lens. It's much softer than stock Canon lens and has focusing problems in lower light conditions. These are beyond budget, the kind of thing you would expect to find with a Mexong SLR on supermarket shelf. I actually have sample small print shots if anyone's interested in difference between Sigma 18-50mm and Canon's kit 18-55mm lens...

 

[ej159]

Sounds good - please share them.

 

[Howski]

Yea please, I was under the impression that it would be better than the kit lens.
-How.

 

[v0n]

Very well then - here comes the unscientific "rag shot" test of Canon kit lens vs Sigmas budget lens.
First let me give you an idea about the size of the sample:

Brighter rectangle is roughly what you see below as "center" sample.

~28mm f5.6 Canon kit 18-55mm vs Sigma 18-50mm
centre

As you can see Sigma is waaaaay softer than Canon's lens in the centre. Moving to the corner of the picture:

.. you will notice Sigmas corner is equally soft and unsharp as it's centre but Canon lens looses sharpness towards corners of the picture.

 

[v0n]

~28mm f11 Canon kit 18-55mm vs Sigma 18-50mm
centre

corner

This is where Sigma "shines" - where Canon corners turn dark and loose focus Sigma is almost equally bright as centre. It's still softer that Canon though...

 

[v0n]

On the other side of focal range:

~55/50mm f5.6 Canon kit 18-55mm vs Sigma 18-50mm
centre

corner

This is the sweet spot of Sigma - does loose sharpness towards the corners more noticeably than Canon but centre looks pretty good.

 

[v0n]

However, move aperture setting and things degrade rapidly:
~55/50mm f11 Canon kit 18-55mm vs Sigma 18-50mm
centre

corner

Sigma is soft as jelly again...

At wide angle Sigma excells at small apertures, zoom in and it's vice verse - large aperture is the only way to get sharp pictures. At 18mm f3.5 Sigma produced pictures so soft I thought there was something wrong with either focusing system of my 350D (but sadly it wasn't - although it has to be said - Sigma really struggles to hunt for focus at those settings and low light) or manufacturer overshot the specs on paper and the lense is simply unable to focus at 70cm from target. As far as I can see, the best thing about Sigma 18-50mm DC, from the manufacturer and sellers point of view is the possibility of buyers mistaking it for Sigma 18-50mm EX DC , which is pretty decent lens actually...

 

[Howski]

Cheers for that - I'll have to re think what lens I'll get.
-How.

 

[ej159]

So what is a good replacement for the stock lens or the Sigma for under £100?