Close-Ups

[chi]

What lenses should I get for taking close-ups of subjects that are 40 to 100 feet away with a T3i that work good and don't cost an arm and a leg?

[amfoto1]

Well, you don't want a close-up or macro lens, which is what I thought at first when I read your headline.

For more distant subjects you want a telephoto lens, which can be a zoom or a single focal length prime lens.

On a T3i, a 200mm to 300mm lens is a relatively strong telephoto. There are longer focal lengths, but in general the price for them rises dramatically.

The Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS is a lower cost lens with quite good image quality. Expect to pay about $200 US for it.

EF 70-300mm IS USM is a step up, with higher performance auto focus.

(Note: 75-300mm is a step down, often lower priced than even the 55-250mm, which is a much better lens optically)

EF 70-300mm DO IS USM is the next step up, a very compact lens that would be nice for travel.

Top of the line among these is the 70-300mm "L" IS USM.

All four of the Canon 70-200mm lenses are pro quality lenses, too. I use the 70-200/2.8 IS (original version) and the 70-200/4 IS. Not sure what you consider "an arm and a leg". These tend to be more expensive lenses, but  are true workhorses. 

You might find a 70-300mm "L" or 70-200/2.8 feels heavy and somewhat unbalanced on a T3i. It might help to add the vertical/battery grip to the camera, if you don't already use one.

There are other lenses, longer to 400mm, 500mm or more. Prices go up dramatically in most cases, for longer zooms or primes.

I'd suggest you go check them out in a store and try some of these out on your camera, to see what you think. If you are wanting to shoot a relatively large subject such as a moose or an elephant at 100 feet, that's one thing. If you are trying to get a shot of a small bird 100 ft away, that's another thing entirely.

***********
Alan Myers

San Jose, Calif., USA
"Walk softly and carry a big lens."
GEAR: 5DII, 7D(x2), 50D(x3), some other cameras, various lenses & accessories
FLICKR & PRINTROOM 

[chi]

Thank you so much!

[chi]

Thank you so much very helpful information and I'll do a better job with my subject next time.

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

Most vendors want cash.  I have not found any that would agree to accept body parts as payment.  

The lens really depends on the size of the subject and how you want them framed.  Taking a photo of a horse from 100 feet away and taking a photo of a small bird from 100 feet away would call for completely different focal lengths.

Here's a good site to help you get a better idea of what you might need.  This site has online photography calculators.  The one you want to look at is called the "Dimensional Field of View" calculator.

The site is here:  http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm

1. Scroll down to "Dimensional Field of View"
2. Enter the crop-factor of your camera body (The T3i has a 1.6 crop factor... that value of 1.6 would always be entered into the "Focal length Multiplier" box.)  
3. Since you know you want oe about 100 feet away (I'm using picking that as an example) you would enter 100 in the "Distance to Subject" box.  
4. Now enter a lens focal length you'd like to try... for example, enter 200 into the "Lens focal length" box.
5. Click "Compute"

It will show you that a 200mm lens on your camera body (1.6 crop-factor / focal-length-multiplier) at a distance of 100 feet would have physical dimensions of 11' 3" x 7' 6".  On object of that size (or smaller) would fit into the frame.  An object larger than that size would not fit into the frame.

NEXT...

There are lots of telephoto zoom lenses with relatively low prices (relatively).  There are also some very expensive lenses.  All lenses are a game of trade-offs.  There is no cheap lens with phoneominal optics, excellent constant low-focal ratio through the zoom range for low-ligh photoraphy, and lightning fast focusing motors.  That lens does not exist (if it did, we'd all own it.)

You have to determine what sorts of subject(s) you plan to shoot with this lens and what sort of attributes would be important in a lens based on that subject.  For example... there are some relatively inexpensive lenses that have slow focusing motors.  This helps keep costs down, but slow focusing motors are not very good for shooting action photography where you're trying to track a subject and the focus distance is continuously changing.    If you're shooting subjects in low light (e.g. sports games played indoors or at night usually have poor available light) then a lens with a very low non-variable focal ratio (such as an f/2.8 zoom) are ideal -- but f/2.8 zooms are larger, heavier, and significantly more expensive.

We might be able to help with the attributes that would be important factors in a zoom lens if we knew what sorts of subjects you plan to photograph.

[chi]

Very helpful information, thanks.