Zoom lens recommendations for newborn and toddler photos

[emilykate3]

Hi! I am brand new to photography and have a canon rebel eos t7. I want to take photos of my newborn and toddler and have been using the nifty fifty. I struggle to take pictures with that lense as I can’t zoom in and out. Any other suggestions on lenses or how to maximize nifty fifty?

[deebatman316]

Your camera should’ve came with some variant of the EF-S 18-55mm lens. Unless you bought the camera body alone. The 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera such as the digital Rebel is a portrait focal length. So it will be difficult to take pictures with.

[Tronhard]

Hi Emily and welcome to the forum:
The 50mm is a good lens but, as you have found, offers challenges in that you have to 'zoom with your feet', something that is not always practical.

There are two lenses I would recommend for your camera:
1. The EF-S 18-135 IS USM  is an excellent optic and will offer you great flexibility, not only for your children when they are very young, but for later.   It will pair perfectly with the camera body you have.  It has blazing fast and accurate focus, silent, and can be focused manually or autofocused.
2. Somewhat smaller is the lens that Demetrius mentioned, the EF-S 18-55.  There are multiple variants of this, and I would strongly recommend considering only the STM version of this lens.  That is faster to focus, does so silently, and can be manually focused without having to activate the AF-MF focus required by other versions.

If you want to consider used, if you are in the USA, look for KEH.COM, a company that buys and sells used camera gear.  They rate their gear and it comes with a warranty, so you can have confidence in your purchase.

[March411]

You really can't go wrong with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM which can be found used, in excellent condition between $800 - $1250. MPB and KEH are trusted resellers and have some pretty nice gear.

Your T7 given it is an APS-C sensor will have an actual FOV (field of view) of a 38-112mm lens. With it's constant aperture of f2.8 across it's entire focal length it will be fast enough to photograph in low light and offer you a decent amount of range to grab some decent portraiture. 

It is a bit expensive though, have you had any thoughts on upgrading into the R system? The EF mount system is transitioning towards end of life with many lenses no longer being supported for maintenance.

[emilykate3]

Thank you so much. I went with the lense mentioned above (18-135) but the issue is that I am looking for a more blurry background and that one seems to not have the lowest apperture. 

I have thought about upgrading my camera but I just started taking photos and I want to make sure I’m consistent before getting something new. 

i also tried to adjust my focus options and use the back button focus with continuous shooting but I find that some pictures are still coming out blurry

i am brand new and truthfully just want pictures of my children so I will keep at it and really appreciate this advicr

[deebatman316]

How much of a blurred background do you want or are you expecting. Also what is your budget to spend on a lens. Canon only made 1 constant aperture zoom and I had one and it is very expensive but for the money its the best lens for APS-C cameras such as the digital Rebel lineup. Can you please post some images of the blurry pictures in questions so forum users can review them. Was flash being used what were the lighting conditions like when shooting.

[March411]

Demetrius,

Are you thinking/talking about the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM? I was going to add that to my original post but it didn't really extend the range much past her 50mm. Is there an EF-S with a fixed/fast aperture in the EF-S line that has more range?

[deebatman316]

Yes the EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 IS USM lens. I couldn’t remember the exact name. But I was pulled away from the computer and didn’t finish my post. There are no other EF-S zoom lenses with a constant aperture. There are other EF-S lenses with a variable aperture. Such as the EF-S 15-85mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens. Or EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM lens. Canon did make the variable aperture super zoom EF-S 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 IS lens. But this lens uses a very slow AF motor. When I mean it’s slow it’s extremely slow to AF. My old EF 70-210mm F/4 lens from 1987 AF faster than that lens. Even though it uses a very old and slow Arc Form Drive AF motor which is also noisy. I’m not even comparing it to the fast Ring Type USM AF motor in use since 1987. Canon never released an STM replacement model. This lens was released with a very slow Micro Motor instead. In the early years of the EF-S Mount. Canon released decent lenses with Ring Type USM AF motors. Later on around 2012 they started to drop the Ring Type USM lenses and Micro Motor lenses. They started replacing them with STM lenses with slower variable apertures instead. The EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 IS USM lens never got upgraded to an STM version. Or a version II with Ring Type USM. 4 EF-S lenses never got an STM replacement those were the EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro USM, EF-S 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 IS, EF-S 17-85mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM & EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 USM lenses. These lenses were simply discontinued with no replacement. Some newer STM replacement lenses sell along with their Ring Type USM counterpart. One example is the EF-S 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5 USM & the EF-S 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6 IS STM lens.

[March411]

That's what I thought, it is a very nice S lens. Canon never really seems to focus on fast lenses in their APS-C line.

[deebatman316]

In the early years Canon did try with very nice fast Ring Type USM lenses. But the market wasn’t there for those lenses. Ring Type USM lenses are more costly to manufacture vs STM and Micro Motor.