EF lens recommendations for aviation photography

[Stoney10]

Hello I would like to start plane spotting and aviation photography and wonders what good lense under 150 would be good I have a cannon T7 #T7dslr

[kvbarkley]

What lens do you have?

About your only option is the EF-S 55-250, and that is $300. And even that is probably too short.

[Ron888]

Do you mean under $150? Most aviation photographers use maximum focal lengths above 400mm.That won't be possible with a new lens. The EFS55-250 kvbarkley mentioned would be your best option.A used one would meet your budget.
As for longer lenses the only cheap ones will be fully manual.That is ,you'll need to focus and even set the aperture yourself.And these are optically 'ok' ,not great.They would be a notch or two below the 55-250 mentioned above.
Avoid the 420-800mm superzooms,they're utter trash

[wq9nsc]

As KV and Ron noted, it takes a pretty long telephoto unless you are at an airshow shooting planes on the ground.  Your best bet lowest cost lens that will do what you need is one of the 150-600mm "super zoom" lens from Sigma or Tamron but even used they are going to be well over $150.

The first 5 photos below of the crop dusters were captured with an EF 800 f5.6 on a 1DX III body, around the equivalent of a 600mm focal length on your "crop sensor" T7, the last two were when my daughter went up in an ultralight last summer and were captured with a Canon EF 200-400 f4 with integrated 1.4X extender providing a 560mm focal length.  This is equivalent to a 350mm focal length on a crop sensor and you quickly end up with the target being a small spot on the sensor as it moves to a normal distance away.

You need as much focal length as possible for this sort of activity.

Rodger

[Ron888]

Off topic: It amuses me they wrote 'experimental' on the plane.Maybe it's a requirement for certain types?
Anyways it cant do much for the passenger's confidence😅

[kvbarkley]

Experimental means that it is a one-off, not a "type" like a Cessna 172 or Boeing 737 that have been certified by the FAA.

These are usually home built.

[Ron888]

Ok,thought it must be something along those lines

[wq9nsc]

Pretty sure it is a requirement 🙂  On commercial aircraft, they only label it experimental after it turns out it wasn't quite production ready.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Amateur built are always experimental, but experimental is not always amateur built. FAA regs for home built airplanes state you must have a visible placard near the cockpit identifying the fact to would be passengers of the airplane origin.

[ebiggs1]

"...  what good lense under 150 would be good I have a cannon T7"

Sorry, there isn't any.  You need to save up quite a bit longer. The best all around lens for this type work is one of the 150-600mm super zooms but even used one of them will far exceed $150 which is a totally unrealistic price point. These were shot with my Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports Lens.