I'm about to make a big decision in my life. No, I won't divorce Irma. I'm about to switch from Nikon to Canon, it will be a 350D most probably.

I found this kit: 350D with EF-S 18-55 and EF 55-200 for 1085 Euro (US $1.346). Is this a reasonable price? Are these reasonable lenses?

Also, I'm thinking of buying a really long zoom lens. I want to get as close as Irma, or closer. What should I look at? How important is image stabilization, is it just nice to have or a must if I want to shoot at 400 or more without a tripod?

Finally, what would be the best choice for macro equipment?

Thanks for advice.

I paid a little less than that for my 300D, but that was nearly a year ago. I got the 18-55 and a 70-300 Qunataray lense, camera bag etc. The price doesn't seem bad.

As for the long lens... I have been trying to pull the trigger for over 8 months! I go back and forth between the Canon 100-400 L IS etc and the Sigma 50-500. Both produce wonderful images and I can't decide if I need the IS or not.

There are so many opinions on it's worth.

The kit lenses are a great bang for the buck. I have no lenses with IS but even at 300mm hand held is shakey. IS can't hurt at 200mm either and I personally would be inclined to have IS from 200mm or more. Granted this is considering we're shooting at fast shutter speeds too. With slower speeds IS can't hurt at any focal length.

$1,346.00 is a bit steep. Those cameras are available here in Canada for in and around $1,200.00 - $1.300.00 CAD. which is $973.00 - $1054.00 USD.

http://www.henrys.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...reId=10001

EnglishBob Wrote:I go back and forth between the Canon 100-400 L IS etc and the Sigma 50-500.

For extra-long zooms, I'd compare those two and the Sigma 80-400 OS (their equivalent to IS.) And I'd probably end up with the Canon.

Also, don't forget that those lenses are huge, and you'll need to budget for a trailer too.

Thanks a lot, guys!

Now I more or less settled with this:

- 350D
- Sigma 2,8-4,5/24-135 C/EF
- Sigma 4,5-5,6/80-400 APO OS

I'd like to end up with the Canon lens very much, but the extra 500 Euro is too tough.

I think Colin is right with the IS (or in this case OS). I'll need one definitely. After paying for this gear, my hand will shake like hell.

Any more comments, caveats, ideas?

guerito Wrote:I'd like to end up with the Canon lens very much, but the extra 500 Euro is too tough.

I didn't realize the price difference was that large. I'd get the Sigma too then. I've seen excellent shots from it.

Gasp! I'd like to hear what's making you do the big switch, G!

Your setup sounds sweet - you've got all bases covered. Perhaps later down the track you might want to look at an ultrawide like a 10-20mm or something similar. But that can wait I suppose.

Don't forget to get some macro tubes too!

Well, what's making me do this?

I've been with Nikon for around 15 (or more) years. This is how old my zoom lens, my 50mm lens and my macro are. Back then, everything was film and Nikon was great. When I went digital I started with an Olympus P&S and, when I realized this is getting serious, I happily bought a Nikon D70 to use my old lenses.

With the time I realized that my old lenses are, well, old. They are film lenses, and they hadn't been the best of breed back then when I bought them. My long zoom lens is 70-210 which is ok for cats and dogs but too short for wildlife and birds. My macro lens just happens to fit on the camera but doesn't cooperate with it - I have to set everything manual and don't get any EXIF data. The 50mm is ok I suppose but I hardly ever use it. The autofocus on the 50mm and the zoom is slow, noisy and not always spot on.

So the time was ripe for getting a new lens.

Now Nikon has somehow fallen behind a bit, IMO. Canon has CMOS sensors which are less noisy and they take part in the development, whereas Nikon depends on Sony, or so I've heard. The Canon high MP cameras are considerably less expensive than theNikon ones. My impression is that with Canon you get more bang for the buck. And Nikon has strange ideas about their RAW files. There raw files may not be as raw as they should be, it seems.

Well if I bought a new Nikon lens now, I'd probably be stuck with Nikon forever. That's why I'm making the switch now. I'm losing the investment of the D70 kit, but it's a fresh start with two state-of-the-art lenses.

The D70 can still serve for Macros, as long as I haven't got a macro lens for the Canon. And Irma can learn about DSLRs with the D70.

guerito Wrote:. Canon has CMOS sensors which are less noisy

The flip side of this is that you may find Canon images seem softer straight from the camera, but they do sharpen up nicely. The lens makes a difference, too.

Guerito,

I ended up just going for the kit lens as I saved a a couple of hundred aussie $ so I can put that to a better quality lens.............I look forward to see your pics and reading your review.

Arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, another convert to the dark side.

Have you though about the new Sigma 18-200mm, it is getting some pretty good reviews? Or my favourite the 18-50mm F2.8, they look petty good.

Yes, Peted, I had a look at it too. In the end, it was the 2.8 aperture that made me go for the 24-135. Sometimes I love to take "available light" pictures at the end of the day, and I thought the wider opening would give me ten or fifteen more minutes before darkness to shoot.

With the 18-50 I would have had a gap between 50 and 80. I think it's a good idea to have the focal lengths overlapping a bit, to reduce lens changes. As for the wider angle, I've seen with my D70 kit that I'm not using much the widest range. The pictures I've taken with 18mm have always been rather distorted. If I feel the urge one day, I can still go and buy a fisheye.

Thanks again for helping me out, guys. I placed my order on Sunday, paid already and now I'm just waiting for the goods to arrive. You will be the first ones to know when they come.

Bet the waiting is killing you eh? Nothing like putting down your hard earned cash and that agonising wait for the goods to arrive...

Update: They will send my things tomorrow, except for the Sigma 80-400! :o

I had a mail saying it should arrive (at their place) on the 30th, but online they said they don't have a date yet. So I phoned them and, after asking the purchase department and calling back, they told me this lens isn't available anymore. Their supplier offered it by mistake.

Well, I bit it back and ordered the Canon 100-400 L IS instead. They gave me €80 rebate for my inconvenience. They will send the other gear tomorrow and the Canon lens in a few days.

In my original order was a Sigma 1.4x converter, too. Does anybody know if this will work on the Canon lens too?

I am 90% sure you will lose AF at longer focal lengths using a converter with that lens on a 350D, because the AF stops working at minimum f/5.6 on most of Canon's consumer-grade DSLRs, while it functions up to f/8 on their "pro" models. The converter increases the effective aperture by the focal length magnification factor (e.g., f/5.6 becomes ~f/8.0), and the camera apparently knows this.

From another forum:

Quote:1) How to activate auto focus (AF), when using 1.4x or 2.0x teleconverters with f/5.6 or slower lenses.

It is simple. Just place a small transparent piece of tape on the last 3 pins of the converter. The tape should be placed on the left hand side of the converter when looking at it from the lens connection side. With these three left pins covered, the converter continues to operate on the D30 with the AF activated. It works great with the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS.

Thanks Mitch, I'll give this a try.

Hope it works.

That's a real bugger about the Sigma lens no longer being available.

Hmm, I don't know if the lens is unavailable from the manufacturer itself. They still have it on their web site. All I know is that my supplier's suppliers can't supply. :/

As for the AF with extenders, I found the following In the 350D manual:

If an extender (optional) is attached and the maximum aperture of the lens is f/5.6 or smaller, AF will not be possible.

As the max aperture of the 100-400 is 4.5, maybe AF is possible at all?

Not without the tape mod, because the extender changes the aperture by the multiplication factor. Your f/4.5 becomes f/6.3 max ap.

Apparently it's those last three pins on the extender that communicate the aperture change to the camera. So if you cover them up, you are tricking the camera into ignoring the extender, and AF might then work.

It seems to be a psychological thing - it's not that the camera "can't" use AF with small-aperture lenses, it's that it "doesn't want to." So you need to trick it into believing it has a wider-aperture lens attached.

Now here is what the Cannon 100-400 L IS can do:



400mm, f5.6, 1/25sec, ISO 800, handheld (standing, not lying on the ground!) in failing light around 9pm. And yes, it is 1/25sec, not 1/250! You gotta love this image stabilizer!

Here is the original size. I know it's a bit soft, but for the shooting params I think it's great. The image is not processed at all, not even the raw file. Just converted to tiff, opened in PS and saved for web.

Thanks again to all of you who helped me getting this lens!

Man, you gotta love IS!

Amazing how sharp everything is!