topic Best Budget Zoom Lenses in EF & RF Lenses

Best Budget Zoom Lenses

jasusu — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:50:53 GMT

I’m about to buy myself my first camera, and I’m going with the r8, however, other than the 50mm 1.8 im not sure what to start off with, is there a cheap lens I should go with? I heard about the 24-240 being decent but wanted to hear from people and see what y’all think I just need something affordable so I can save up for nicer stuff going forward.. https://xender.vip/

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

March411 — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:48:27 GMT

The RF24-240mm is one of the best lenses I own at its price point. The only drawback is in low light situations, you will have to increase the ISO which will create a bit of noise. The lens is sharp, fast, compact and a great all day carry.

These images both came off of the 24-240mm, the first was a morning shot with overcast skies, still a decent image. The second was the same day mid afternoon. Its important to note that both these images had to be reduced to publish in this thread.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

ebiggs1 — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:29:23 GMT

"... other than the 50mm 1.8 im not sure what to start off with, ..."

I would not "start off with" a 50mm prime. No way it is too limiting and a difficult FL to live with. It is a special needs lens and not a good GP lens. The 24-240mm would be a whole lot better but I wouldn't buy it either. Best go is to buy your new EOS R8 with the RF24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM kit lens. That's the cheapest way you can go for the biggest bang for the buck.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:57:35 GMT

I agree with ebiggs1 that the 50mm f/1.8 is not a lens you want to start out with. It is a great lens (I love mine), but you are very limited with it, and it is a focal length that many photographers only need once in a while. I like to challenge myself with this lens occasionally on photowalks for street photography, but it can be a challenge. It's often not wide enough, or long enough.

As mentioned the RF 24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 is a good budget suggestion. However if you do want a little more reach, the RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 is also a good suggestion for $100 more than the 24-50mm. I have that one as well, and feel it is a very underrated kit lens. I find myself reaching for this one fairly often when I want a general purpose walk around lens.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

shadowsports — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 22:40:25 GMT

My vote is for the 24-105 f4-7.1 or the RF 24-240 if these are within budget.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 23:11:51 GMT

Step 1: Don't buy the 50mm lens. The 50 isn't "nifty". It's too "short: when you need the reach of a telephoto and too "long" when you need a wider angle.

The 24-240 is an infinitely better option by far.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

Waddizzle — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 01:11:22 GMT

Welcome. I suggest the RF 28-70mm f/2/8 IS STM lens.

I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with that 50mm lens on a full frame camera. It can teach more about photography than almost any narrow aperture zoom. It’s cheaper than a photography class. It can do the job in many low light situations.

But there’s much to be said in favor of a “standard” zoom lens, 24-70mm. Standard refers to the range of focal lengths that the lens covers. These are some of the most commonly used focal lengths used for general photography. The best zoom lenses have a “zoom ratio”, longest to shortest focal lengths, of 4:1 or smaller.

The 24-240mm falls into a category of lenses known as “super zooms.” These lenses typically cover a zoom range from wide angle, about 24mm, to super telephoto, about 300mm or even more. There is a trade off in image quality for such a wide zoom ration as the 10:1 for the 24-240mm. It is not as bad as many others, which have zoom ratio in the 20:1 neighborhood. Most casual photographers are satisfied by the performance of the 24-240mm.

If you foresee the 24-240mm as being your only lens for the foreseeable future, then I would recommend it. It is a great all-in-one lens, but it is not a can do-it-all lens. It is an excellent choice for traveling light when on vacation.

But I would still lean toward the 24-70mm and the 100-400mm as a later purchase down the road. Always factor in what your future lens purchases might be prior to investing one.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

March411 — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 02:15:48 GMT

The 24-70mm or the 28-70mm are also a real good lenses and it still gives the OP the wider side for landscape and street photography if that's of interest. Also a big fan of the 100-400mm, light, compact, fast focus and good IQ. I would put the IQ in the same category as the 24-240mm. I would agree that It is a great all-in-one lens, but it is not a can do-it-all lens. It struggles in low light including focus. I have had a couple of occasions early and late in the day when it racks to grab focus. It eventually gets the job done with a little motivation but it does struggle.

If the range of the 24-70mm or the 28-20mm works those are also a darn fine lens. To many choices, to little cash.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

ebiggs1 — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:44:09 GMT

" It can teach more about photography than almost any narrow aperture zoom. "

Total nonsense. You can learn photography just as well with a zoom. There is nothing magical about a 50mm f1.8 prime lens teaching anyone any more about photography than a typical zoom and the 50mil has a great deal of downsides.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:57:22 GMT

10,000% agree.

As a working photographer for 45 years and as a photography instructor, developing the eye for composition comes first. The 50mm lens stifles that learning curve hardcore.

People who wax poetic about the "nifty 50" also was poetic about the exposure triangle, an anachronism from film days.

The excellence of in-camera metering and the editing power of Lightroom and Photoshop has pretty rendered the esoterica of the exposure triangle useless.

Sure, once you have an eye and are competent with your photo editing, you could learn exposure triangle for spits and giggles.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

ebiggs1 — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 16:10:35 GMT

1000,000% agree.

I could not have said it better. Besides most standard kit lenses have 50mm included for free so it is possible to fix it there and try if that floats your boat.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 16:26:04 GMT

"The excellence of in-camera metering and the editing power of Lightroom and Photoshop has pretty rendered the esoterica of the exposure triangle useless."

You are correct that the exposure triangle is useless for digital photographers who don't care to know the tech aspects, they just want the camera to do all of the work. However, I think it's still nice to have a basic understanding of what the camera is doing and why. Knowing the exposure triangle helps those who steer away from auto modes, and are a bit confused at first on "why does adjusting this affect that?"

On a related note... A surprising number of people are either going back to film, or are discovering it for the first time. Those that are new to film can be somewhat lost because their digital gear did all the thinking for them. Granted, there are fully automatic film cameras that eliminate the need for knowing it, but I know I'm not the only one who prefers full manual film cameras. While most people who want to jump into film for the first time do know what I'm talking about when I mention the exposure triangle, I still get the "deer in the headlights" look from quite a few.

I had to laugh about your 50mm comment because it's so true. I remember buying a Pentax K2 DMD 35mm camera around 1980 from a local camera store. The sales person was pretty insistent that I needed a 50mm lens, even though I wanted a 28mm. He told me that I was the only person to not buy the 50mm with this camera, and I would be back within a week. I never did. However, buying used 35mm cameras these days, they all seem to come with a 50mm lens (why???). I currently have four of them with the K-mount or M-42 mount, and only occasionally use one.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 17:00:51 GMT

While manual can help in tricky lighting situations, the "I must use manual" in another massive load of nonsense that people say who own a camera and think that makes them a photographer.

A colleague of mine--a professional photographer and instructor--says "Owning a Nikon does not make you a photographer; it makes you a Nikon owner."

When I am teaching, priority one is composition, Then--and only when--basic composition awareness is in place do I start going into tricky lighting, but instead of hopping to manual, we investigate exposure bias controls. And exposure bias will solve nearly all of the issues.

As a teenager, my first camera was a Pentax ME and--not knowing better--I got the 50mm. In that day zooms were nearly non-existent. In the 80s I bought a Pentax Super Program with a 35-105 zoom and I still use it. When I jumped to Canon for autofocus--Pentax autofocus was Rube Goldberg so I jumped ship--I only bought zooms and have not regretted it. Now I am replacing EF zooms and RF glass and passing the EF zooms and my DSLR Canons to a friend who wants to get into photography.

In addition to shooting with my digital Canons, I shoot with my Pentax ME (1977), my K1000 (1985), a K2, an MX, a Nikon F, a Mamiya RB67, and a 645. The K2, MX, and F were all acquired in the past year and all three came with the stupid 50mm lens.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 20:12:30 GMT

"While manual can help in tricky lighting situations, the "I must use manual" in another massive load of nonsense that people say who own a camera and think that makes them a photographer."

There is a lot of that mindset... "I shoot manual, so I know that I am a good photographer!" I usually think to myself "No... that simply means you understand how exposure works." lol

It's silly not to rely on various auto settings for general photography. Some of the jobs I do I have one change to get it right. For example, a race where runners are headed directly towards me while I'm in the finish line chute. Manual would be insane taking 4,000 images that way... and probably mean I would never be hired again by the event organizer.

However, a lot of the people I help out with learning different things with photography want to learn about my main shooting styles/subjects. I shoot a lot of night skies, and I've been heavily into infrared photography for decades. I have no choice but to make sure the photographers I'm helping with these fully understand manual settings. You can do either of these types of photography with auto settings if you don't mind constantly over and under exposing by changing the compensation settings... but I find it so much easier to just shoot manual for things like this, especially with the infrared light that is next to impossible to read from one minute to the next (unlike visible light). Some might call that nonsense to teach that way, but to each their own.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 20:20:56 GMT

Night photography is an example of "technical" photography and hence there is "technique" involved, specifically manual, but this is a small subset of what constitutes photography. Have you played around with the infrared filters specifically for digital cameras? That is a world of fun, but again a bit esoteric.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:14:56 GMT

Yes, on the infrared filters for digital (and heavily for their usage), but only for the past 22 years. Before that (and still to this day) it was infrared film, both with, and without filters. Typically my digital cameras have been non-converted and use either 720nm and 850nm lens filters. But I have had four different digital cameras converted either to 590nm (for 2 of them) and full spectrum for the other two... most recently the R8 last year. It is a niche, but it's quite shocking on how many new photographers are taking a strong interest in it. It's also odd on how many of these prints I sell compared to my other work.

Only if you are curious... small sampling of some of my infrared work. It's fairly disorganized, but this will show what I do with digital infrared. https://500px.com/p/garysyrba/galleries/infrared

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:25:01 GMT

The 720nm filter is a lot of fun. I don't plan to convert any of my mirrorless cameras. I put them into monochrome when I'm using the 720nm and then edit the results.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:41:36 GMT

The nice thing about conversion is that everything pretty much becomes hand held shutter speeds... except for nighttime infrared.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

LeeP — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:53:29 GMT

What is the price point for conversion that you have found and whom did you use for the conversion? I've never looked into it. Perhaps I'll sacrifice my R100 and level up by second-body camera.

Re: Best Budget Zoom Lenses

justadude — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:04:40 GMT

I’ve found Kolari Vision not only is the best at conversion, their customer service is outstanding. If you call with questions, you automatically have someone on the phone that is friendly, knowledgeable, and happy to help… both before and after the sale.

I actually found how easy they go the extra mile just a few weeks ago. My friend has one of their more expensive lens filters (around $200) that he has owned for close to a year. While removing it from the lens, the inner ring somehow fell out, and the glass dropped and cracked. He called to simply ask if there was anything he could do, thinking maybe he could just buy the glass element). They didn’t even hesitate. They sent him a new filter, no charge, and a return envelope so they could try to find out what went wrong with the old one.