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Canon 18-200mm zoom lense

jazzman1
Rising Star

I'm new here.  I have a Canon T3i.  Two kit lenses came with it in a bundle...18-55mm, 55-250mm.  I am considering getting the Canon 18-200mm.  Would the Canon 18-200mm be a good choice to replace both lenses, or are there better choices to replace them with and keep the 18-200mm also?

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

ebiggs1
Legend
Legend

I would not buy one for a few reasons.  One and formost, it is more difficult to make a zoom lens when the zoom range gets very extreme.  18 to 200 is a 11x range and very ambitious to say the least. Not solely in optics but in build quality, too. It will be in the same quality level as the two lenses you have so the only advantage is having just the one lens.  Is that what you require? The top benefit of a DSLR is the ability to have the right lens for the right job.  That usually involves several different lenses.  So you will be defeating that concept somewhat!

 

I would rather see you get a different level of lens for instance the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens.  Directly replacing your 18-55mm kit lens. Of course this is in case what you have is not working for you. But this move is into a better built, better optics and a little faster lens all of which can be very useful.  Make no mistake the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens is a very good lens and offers a constant aperture.  A super plus in my book.

 

Unfortunalely these lens upgrades are expensive and replacing the 55-250mm is going to be more so.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

View solution in original post

Easy ones first!

The S in EF-S stands for short focus.  Any camera that can use a EF-S lens can use a EF lens, too.  A camera that is designed for EF lenses can only use EF, no S lenses.

 

The EF 50mm f1.4 is can be used on either EF or EF-S bodies.  It is not actually designed for either.  It is simply a 50mm f1.4 lens.  Either body no matter, it is still a 50mm lens.  It can not change that, however, on a crop body, a Rebel for instance, it will give the same perspective as a 80mm lens would on a full frame body.  Typically making it a pretty good portrait lens.

Now these are just numbers and of no real concern except to sorta guide you in a comparasion.  You choose the lens that works for your need.

 

You need to make the decision on whether you are going to remain with crop body sized camera or not.  You may wind up buying all your lenses over and that is not a good thing!  Is it?  I know lots of people that live with crop bodies all there lives and  know folks that only shoot FF.  There is not right or wrong.  It is what it is. Nothing more.  Lots of photographers even shoot both, believe it or not!

 

Now my personal feelings on a "do all lens".  For me there is none.  I always have at least two cameras and two lenses with me all the time.  A very strict rule I never broke..................until lately.  Another rule I will never break is to use any third party lens...............................until lately.  For the most part they were junk.  Oh sure if you lucked out and got a good one, it was pretty good, no doubt.  But very spotty and hit or miss.   Not for me!  But "lately" there has been a great change in third party lenses.  Especially at Sigma.  They make very high quality glass and they have improved their CS drasticly.  Tamron is close behind and getting better.  Forget the rest, Tokina and the others for now

 

Now back to that "do all" lens.  I did buy a Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD.  Not quite a "do all" but it has a fair amount of zoom useage.  It turns out it is a nice lens and impossibile to beat for $1100 bucks.  Worthy of consideration by anyone.

 

What do I carry?  A EF 24-70mm f2.8 and a EF 70-200mm f2.8  Canon "L" lenses.  My goto and workhorse combo.  That is as good as it gets.  There is nothing better on the planet.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

View solution in original post

182 REPLIES 182

ebiggs I just sent along reply that went to email heaven somewhere.   I have no idea what happened to it.  I keep seeing a faint message that says "autosaved at """".   Is there some place here on site to retrieve a message?

Try again.  The site autosaves your reply.  When you try again it should offer you a "load or discard" option.  Choose load.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!


@ebiggs1 wrote:

While on this same topic, you only need to remember two numbers to know all the f-stops.  Can you do that if one of the numbers is 1?  Yes, OK, the numbers you must remember are 1 and 1.4.  Each stop is a doubling or halving of the previous number.  For instance, one stop slower than f 2 is f2.8.  How do I know that?  Lets look at this, the f-stops are 1 - 1.4 - 2 - 2.8 - 4 - 5.6 - 8 - 11 - 16 - 22 - 32 - 64 - 128 - 256.  Do you see how I started with f2, doubled the previous number, 1.4, to arrive at f2.8?  Another one, what is one stop slower than f4?  It is f5.6.  Again I took the previous stop to f4 which is f2.8 and doubled it.  If you want to know a faster stop you simply half the previous number.  What is one stop faster than f16?  It is f11, why, because I took the previous number to f16 which is f22 and cut it in half and got f11.  If you need to know more than 1 stop you simply repest the process.  Every f-stop is a combo of either 1 or 1.4 up or down.


On some older cameras you may see a different sequence that's about a half stop off from the much more common one that Ernie describes above. It goes, IIRC, 0.9 - 1.2 - 1.8 - 2.3 - 3.5 - 4.5 - 6.3 - 9 - 12.7 - 18 etc. I think my dad's Argus C-2 may have used it, possibly because it had an f/3.5 lens (although my C-3, which also had an f/3.5 lens, used the newer sequence). Just a bit of ancient trivia, really. But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and modern cameras, whose metering systems often let you specify half-stop and third-stop increments, can produce photographs whose f stops mimic these once-forgotten values.

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

Hey Bob hope I can call you that.  Thanks for your info, but I'm not sure at this point  I will understand all the tecnical jargon.  Least till I learn enough to understand and know what you  and ebiggs are talking about with all that.  I see talk of "stops" all the time and still don't know what it means in terms of camera use other than some sort of measurement.  I know it's something I will need to know, but at this point plain english would be better for me to understand.  I'm retired and don't grasp things as easy as I did in my youth.  Alot of this technical stuff don't come easy these days.  But I sure appricate your help and will save the info from you and ebiggs for future reference.  wish it was some way to save some of these posts to my Pc.  Anyhow got to run out for awhile but will be back for sure later this eve.

Hi ebiggs.  Man some lesson here.  No offense my friend, but you're way ahead of my ability right now for me to process all this.   I've saw guys talk alot about stops in lens for instance, but not  understanding it yet, exactly what a stop is.  I've read some of these things in tests results on other sites but not yet knowledgable enough to process that all that info.  One of the things that confuses me about test results and stuff you said here...is conflicting results.  Case in point, I've read serveral tests results for the Canon 18-200mm, against the Sigma, and Tamron zoom lens in the same class, depending on which test it was by which site, the winner came out different.  I've seen sites that declare Canon the winner, and another that says the sigma or tamron was better using simular terms you're using here.  Same thing with cameras.  I've seen different sites test the same  camera and each came up with different results.  Case in point my Canon SX60 HS bridge camera where some sites give it top scores against the Nikon and other super zooms, and others give the nod to a different one.  They all use the same kind of info and simular terms you use here.  Seems photo equipment tests are not an exact science.  Not like 2+2=4.  which it seems to make it all the harder to learn.   Don't get me wrong here ebiggs, not faulting you or refuting what you're saying here.   Just trying to say it is still confusing to me.   But I do know that as I keep learning, one day something will be said that will turn on the light bulb and it'll all fall in place.  That's how it was for me with Pc's.  At 1st computers were intinmidating and so very complicated, same as DSLR's were at 1st.  It was very hard learning things in the beginning, really a struggle.  Then one day things started to fall in place and my learning excelled rapidly from that point.  Then too, learning new tech stuff encluding photography, is'nt as easy these days as it was when I was younger.  Though I'm retired now and have more free time to study and learn, at my age learning this stuff don't come  easy.

 

Far as my Canon 18-200 lenns, I will probably keep it for the purpose I bought it for.  I almost got the Canon 18-135mm but decided to take the longer zoom.  I love it to take far off shots.    I like landscaping, wildlife, and nature stuff, and I think they call it street photgraphy.  Maybe one day I'll start seeing the faults in this lens you do, and maybe I'll replace it with a better walk around.  But as I said before, out of the 6 lens I now have, it's the only one out the bunch I had intending on keeping.  Least ways till I decide to replace it.

 

 

 

 

 

i  I retrieved this message which was auto saved.  1/2 the message I wrote is not here.  Man, I really don't have time now to add everything.  Hope I can say those another time.  Getting this off now before it disappears.

 

Thanks ebiggs.  One thing though hope you can be less tecnical in your answers for now.   Much of what you said is over my head at this point.   I'm retired too and this stuff don't come easy.

 

 

"One of the things that confuses me about test results and stuff you said here...is conflicting results."

 

And a very good reason to NOT read the tests and decide for your self if the equipment you have is working for you.  It does not have to please anyone but you.  Not me, not Bob from Boston, just you.

 

One more word about f-stops.  In the way, way, way back lenses did not have detents to stop someone from rotating it.  So somebody figured out where 1/2 the amout of light was and where twice the amount of light was.  They put detents in the lens and gave them numbers that just happen to be the ones I gave you.  Of course this is simplistic but conveys the general meaning of what a stop is.  Either 1/2 the light or twice the light.

 

The very same concept follows for shutter speeds.  You guessed it.  1 second is one stop from either 1/2 second or 2 seconds.  1/500 is either one stop up or down from 1/250 or 1/1000.  Do you see this doubling or halving?  It is that easy.

I'll let your brain cool down for awhile.   Smiley Happy

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

hi ebiggs1

 

To be honest, I shutdown for a while with all this technical stuff, it was feeling overwhelming.  It was too much new info to pocess at one time.  But I'll come back to it another time and tackle it when I'm fresh.  I understand in theory what you and Bob said about f stops.  I understand doubling the number  1.4 = 2.8.  But I'm still trying to figure how that plays with my lens.  Where on my lens wouuld I make such an adjustment???  Looking at my lens (18-200mm) on the end connected to my body I see numbers....18..24...50...80...125...175...200.   I assume these numbers are there for some purpose other than just to give the mm number one is using.  Do the F stops you guys spoke of have anything to do with these numbers???  If not, what and where does the f stops refer to with the lens???  I looked for the detents on my lens, did'nt see them.

 

Maybe this will all come into play when I start using full manual.  I'm using Program Mode at this time. 


@jazzman1 wrote:

hi ebiggs1

 

To be honest, I shutdown for a while with all this technical stuff, it was feeling overwhelming.  It was too much new info to pocess at one time.  But I'll come back to it another time and tackle it when I'm fresh.  I understand in theory what you and Bob said about f stops.  I understand doubling the number  1.4 = 2.8.  But I'm still trying to figure how that plays with my lens.

 

The number is the ratio of the lens's focal length to the diameter of the lens opening. Because the amount of light let in is proportional to the square of the diameter, doubling the diameter lets in four times as much light. Since a difference of one "stop" represents twice as much light, the difference between f/1.4 and f/2.8 is two stops.

 

Where on my lens wouuld I make such an adjustment???

 

You wouldn't. In olden times (when you and I were kids) there would have been a ring on the lens with numbers on it, and you'd turn that until the white dot matched the right number. Nowadays it's set from the camera. In the manual modes you turn one of the dials on the camera; in the automatic modes the camera sets it automatically.

 

Looking at my lens (18-200mm) on the end connected to my body I see numbers....18..24...50...80...125...175...200.   I assume these numbers are there for some purpose other than just to give the mm number one is using.

 

A zoom lens can be set to a range of focal lengths. In the case of your lens, from 18mm (wide angle) to 200mm (fairly long telephoto). Those numbers tell you what focal length you're actually using.

 

Do the F stops you guys spoke of have anything to do with these numbers???

 

Only in the sense that the f stop is related to the focal length of the lens. But the settings that you use (in manual mode) or the camera uses (in automatic mode) take account of that.

 

If not, what and where does the f stops refer to with the lens???  I looked for the detents on my lens, did'nt see them.

 

As I mentioned above, modern lenses don't need to show them because the settings are done from the camera.

 

Maybe this will all come into play when I start using full manual.  I'm using Program Mode at this time.

 

Yes, but even in the manual modes the camera, not the lens, shows you what the settings are. 

 

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

Thanks Bob, you and ebiggs have given me good info.  I'll come back to this post for time to time to review this stuff as I learn.  Hopefully, soon I'll understand it all.  I'm going to the zoo tomorrow with my Photo Club and will ask some members to follow up on some of the things you guys have said.  If they show me hands on it will sink in much faster.  I've always been a faster learner with hands on my gear, than from instructions, manual, or tips only. 

 

BTW...is there anyway to upload pics here to our posts???  If so, whenever I have issues with some of my pics I could upload them.   I've seen that done on other sites and it helps peeps to see any problem with their own eyes.

 

 

                                                     Take care Bob

Hi ebiggs

 

Going to the Zoo tomorrow with my Photo Club, will be using my Canon  18-200mm lens.  That's the only lens I'm taking.  I will be looking over the pics very carefully to see if I can see some of the distortion you spoke of.   I will let you know if I see anything.  I'm also taking my Canon SX60 Bridge Camera, mostly for video.  I like using the video in it much better because it uses the power Zoom and AF while using video Mode.   My rebel T3i won't auto  focus or Zoom nicely in video mode.   Both have 1080P, but I like using the SX60  with 65X zoom better for Video.

 

Take care my friend.

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