Dummies Guide to an Upgrade please

[Roosta]

Hi HelenClaire,

Here is a great site with more info and reviews directly aimed at us (Canon Users)

You should be able to research plenty on there.

Basics here, Buy EF lenses, and they'll fit on both Bodies, Full Frame or APS-C crop bodies. EF is the way to go for flexibility.

[Tannin]

Good points from all above. Picking up on one of them, EF lenses when you have two or more different-sensor-size bodies (e.g. 450D and 6D): this is a great thing as for practical purposes you get two lenses for the price of one.

• My 35/1.4, for example, is a very nice fast wide angle lens on my 5D II, and a very nice normal lens on my 50D. If I only had (say) the 5D II, I'd need to shell out for something like a 50/1.4 as well as the 35.
• My 100-400 is great for birding on the 7D, but turns into a brilliant long landscape lens on the 1D IV or the 5D II.
• My sweet little 60mm macro, apart from actual macro duties, doubles as a fastish mild telephoto general-purpose prime on the 50D (ideal for portraits and I love using it for landscapes too) and I've lost count of the number of times I've wished it wasn't an EF-S lens because I'd use it a lot on the bigger sensor cameras as a general-purpose normal prime ... but I can't because it's EF-S only.

When I did an outback Queensland trip a couple of years ago and my one and only general-purpose zoom (the 24-105) died, I was able to continue the trip with perfect satisfaction by mixing and matching two or three primes with two or three different bodies, thus covering pretty much every focal length. (The only real loss was not being able to use the 60 macro on the 5D II.)

Anyway, my point is that having two different bodies (or in my case, three different ones, 'coz the 1D IV is APS-H or 1.3 crop) lets you do all sorts of interesting things with even quite a small lens collection. Of course, your lenses must be EF lenses (not EF-S) for this to work.

[Wynny]

Thank you HelenClaire for starting this post and to all the people who have posted the very useful responses. This has been good for me as well as I am currently in the process of deciding which way to go when I upgrade my 600D and at the moment the choice seems to be 6D or wait if there is an announcement soon on the 7D replacement.

On the surface my choice may seem easier as I do mainly landscape including in low light so the 6D would seem the obvious way to go. I accept that if I go this way I will have to replace my EF-S lenses but the thought of selling my beloved 10-22mm is holding me back. I want to be sure that a lens such as the 17-40 L will be an able replacement so I am scouring review upon review and will still have to go through a grieving process should I go full frame.

[gaze]

17-40 f4L is a brilliant lens and more than the equal of the 10-22 in image quality. You will be anything but disappointed with this on a FF Canon...

[Tannin]

I feel your pain, Wynny. I love my 10-22, always have. Plus I have a wonderful little 60mm macro which I will miss for its own sake and also because it was a present, and possibly worst of all, the Tokina 10-17 fish for which there is no full frame equivalent of any kind. (Canon's fisheye zoom is a sad joke of a thing. What were they thinking?)

For several years now I have stuck with my old 50D, essentially just to use those lenses. I've looked over and over again at the 17-40/4, the 16-35/2.8, and the two Tokinas (16-28/2.8 and 17-35/4), and also the Sigma 12-24. Like you I have finally more-or-less decided on the 17-40, largely for bargain price, very useful range, 77mm filter thread the same as all my other lenses, and not least size and weight. I plan to get one when I replace the 50D with the 5D II and replace that with either a 5D III or possibly the 5D IV if it is out by then. By then, the 17-40 will probably have itself been replaced - if I am any guess, by a lens which is optically superior, might just have IS, and will most certainly cost vastly more.


Gaze, thankyou for that comment about the 17-40: I feel better about the prospect of abandoning the 10-22 after that.

[William W]

. . . (Canon's fisheye zoom is a sad joke of a thing. What were they thinking?)

Why, specifically?

Thanks,

WW

[Tannin]

That's maybe a bit far off-topic for this thread, William, though I'd be happy to discuss it elsewhere. Suffice to say that the design is brain-dead and if you gave me one I wouldn't find room in my bag for it.