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Danny
Hello! I am new to photography and finally got my own digital camera (a Canon EOS-M) from a friend, who gifted it along with four Canon lenses. I have been experimenting with all of them, as well as figuring out the basics of the camera. Some of them seem quite similar to me, though, so I’d like to hear some experienced photographers’ opinions on the pros and cons of these lenses 🙂
From left to right, (pictured above) these lenses are:
an EF-M 55-200mm zoom lens
an EF-M 18-55mm zoom lens
an EF-M 11-22mm zoom lens
an EF-M 22mm (the only one that’s not a zoom lol)
I learned that the 55-200mm is a telephoto lens, which I’ve been having a blast with, and I read on some forum that the 18-55 might be of lower quality than the 11-22mm zoom & the 22mm, but other than that I’m having trouble differentiating them. I also don’t really understand what the text that says “Macro” means, since I don’t believe any of these are 1:1 macro lenses. (55-200mm = Macro 3.3ft, 18-55 = Macro 0.8ft, 11-22 = Macro 0.5ft, 22 = Macro 0.49ft)
Any thoughts, suggestions, or opinions on the uses of these lenses would be super appreciated!!
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Hi and welcome to forum:
Congratulations on getting a gift to get you going with photography. Learning to take photographs with a dedicated camera is a very different experience from that of using, say, a cell phone.
Since you are new to photography, I suggest you take some time to get some of the basics under your belt, that will help you significantly to start to take decent photos. There are two aspects of this:
A general understanding of the principle of photography:
This includes an understanding of how cameras measure light and use that to information to set the exposure. It then looks at the trilogy of controls that you can use to control the actual exposure: Shutter speed, ISO and Aperture. Many combinations of all three can get the correct exposure, but each will have a significant impact on the resulting image, especially in terms of composition. To get to grips with this I recommend you watch the following:
Canon Training Articles - Tips & Tricks | Canon U.S.A., Inc.
How to use your camera controls:
This is all about learning how to apply the principles you learn above to the actual camera controls to let you control the camera and lenses. This is critical to allowing you not to have the camera get in your way of the process of taking the image.
As to the lenses:
Each lens has information indicated on the front of the lens, as per the following image:
Each lens takes a certain angle of light and projects it onto a sensor that records the image in what is called a Field of View. How wide an area a lens can project is determined by its Focal Length. The shorter the focal length the wider the area that can be recorded. While such a lens can 'see' a wide area, the details will be very small on the sensor. A lens that has a fixed focal length is called a Prime Lens and a lens that can very its focal length is called a Zoom lens:
22mm - is a prime super wide angle lens
11-22 - is a zoom lens that offers a range of focal lengths between 11mm (ultra wide) to 22mm (super wide)
Prime lenses have simpler construction and generally offer sharper images for their focal length. However, zoom lenses offer the benefit of allowing one to customize the area recorded and thus save cropping afterwards. So, each has its own strengths.
All this is pursued in the first video I presented. So some of your questions shall be answered by watching that video
Steve's suggestion nails it!
The best teacher is going to be yourself. Go out and take lots of pictures at various lengths and exposures. You will learn what works best for you in various settings.
As mention the M50 line has been discontinued but what a great little camera it was and will continue to be if cared for properly. Everyone has given you some great feedback on your current lens lineup and I will just add another take to the body. EF lenses work great! If you are going to hang onto it for the near future find a Canon mount adapter EF-EOS M. But I can state this from experience, only Canon, the 3rd party adapters are not reliable.
While the EF lenses work great on this body there are some limitations. The battery is small and larger lenses will use the battery resources. I carried many of those little suckers when I went into the field, fresh batteries are a must and they are small and light enough where I could carry four plus one loaded in the body to get me through 10 hours in the field.
I mounted the Sigma 100-400mm and the 60-600mm on this body with a lot of success. The images below are both with the 100-400mm.
Just keep in mind you would be investing in discontinued tech if you buy lenses. If you do purchase EF lenses many will work excellently on RF bodies if you upgrade later. Simply be aware of the lens age, the older EF lenses will not work. Sigma lenses will work if the lenses are capable of firmware upgrades through the Sigma dock. Both my Sigma zooms needed firmware upgrades when moving to MILC.
The M50 was always with me when I traveled, so easy to carry and it preformed great. I traded mine as I moved to R bodies, I have in R clone the R50 and what a cool little travel camera.
