Best everyday lens for a t3i, Catching kids around the house

[Skirball]

I don’t think it’s as easy as just a single ‘best’ lens.  There’s several factors I’d consider:

Price – an obvious one

Aperture – if you’re shooting indoors it helps to have a reasonably fast lens (see point #1 – price)

Range – in a general sense, more range, worse image quality.  But if you have to crop half the photo because your zoom wasn’t long enough then the IQ is kind of a moot point.

So I’d either go economical and get a ‘all in one’ lens that is reasonably cheap but has a small minimum aperture – such as the 18-200 or 18 -135 IS (not STM), or you pony up for something fast that is going to cost more and have less range…  but it might get you the shot indoors where these others won’t .   I’d also recommend looking at third party lenses like Sigma or Tamron.  Probably the best place to start:  how much are you willing to spend?

Also, what lenses do you currently own?

Here's an article on all-in-one zooms:

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/best-superzoom-for-canon-dslrs-8-...

[cicopo]

A little more info on the scenario might help us too. Indoors, outdoors, playing sports etc. Indoors needs fast lenses or a good flash for the best results but the built in flash can do the job a lot of the time. My duaghter has done quite well at capturing hundreds of very nice images of her 2 kids with my old 20D & Sigma 18-200.