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Need help buying Canon 20D what lenses

I purchased a 20D this weekend with the lens kit and 1gb of memory. I am planning to purchase the 17-40 f/4L and 70-200 2.8L lenses within the next month. After comments from this site and Fred Miranda's site decided to purchase the best that I can afford so I will only buy once.

Thank everyone for your help. I have alot to learn.

Patty
 
Congratulations, Patty - the 20D is a very good choice! I got mine just 2 days ago, and sold my 10D for $825. Lost money on the 10D but I have no regrets at all, as the 20D is better in so many ways.

The 17-40 is a good lens, but on the 70-200, I would advise that you get either the f4 version which is very compact and light, or the f2.8 IS version. The IS version will allow you to hand-hold the camera. If you get the non-IS version, most of the time you will need a tripod to avoid camera shake. If you are going to mount it on the tripod, then why bother with the f2.8 - you may as well get the f4 version which just as good/sharp, and it's so much lighter/smaller and cheaper.

FWIW, I have the 17-40/4.0L, 50mm/2.5 macro, 85mm/1.8, 135mm/2.0L and the 1.4x II and 2.0x II TC.
 
Bobby,

I must disagree with you. I own the 70-200/2.8 non-IS and never had any problems with shaky pictures. The glass is even better than the IS version, according to some test I have read (it's something because of the IS moving up and down etc.)

Getting the f4 version saves you lots of money and weight but on the other hand it's more likely you get shaky pictures, simply because of the smaller apperture.

That's just my opinion
happy.gif


Cheers
M;los
 
Milos - of course you can take tack sharp pictures, even when hand-held ... but it's just harder, as you need to use a much higher shutter speed.

With the 20D's 1.6x crop factor and when extended to 200mm, your effective focal length becomes 320mm. At that focal length and magnification, you will need to shoot at 1/500 second to avoid camera shake ... unless the camera is mounted on a tripod.

Withe the IS version, you can literally shoot hand-held at 1/60 second or even lower if your technique is good.

All 3 versions of the 70-200mm are very good indeed.
 
Correct me if i'm wrong here, Bobby, but one can't apply the 1/focal length rule on the cropping factor as there's
no extra optical magnification there but just perceived magnification from cropping.
A 20D camera with a 1.6 cropping factor image sensor should use the same 1/focal length rule that a 1Ds with full size sensor
if both are using a 200mm lens, that is, 1/200 sec. One hypothesis of the 1/focal length rule is that there is increasing optical
magnification as focal length increases. If there is real optical magnification, a shake is magnified as well, that's why
we need a faster shutter speed, right?
 
> [When using the 10D or 20D you should take into account the 1.6 cropping factor that is to say 100mm = 160mm therefore 160th or faster.]
 
Hi, Stephen, that would only be true if you compare a bigger sensor with a smaller one but keep the digital sensor's resolution constant. For instance, comparing the picture taken with a Canon 20D (1.6 crop factor) and a Canon Mark II (1.3 crop factor), the 20D would require a faster shutter speed to keep the same degree of crispness than a Canon Mark II. But that only happens because both sensors are 8MP sensors. If one shoots a bird using the same same lens at the same distance using each camera, the bird's eye, say, would be bigger on the 20D picture, as the 8MPs in the 20D are used to depict just a fraction of the frame the 8MPs of the Mark II does. However, if you take a camera with a full sensor size that has 16MP, say, and another one that has sensor of 10MP and a cropping factor of 1.6, then, the size of the bird's eye (supposing same lens, same distance, etc.) would be the same (supposing the bird's eye is in the picture, of course). In that case, the cropping factor doesn't matter at all. So, what really makes the difference is not the cropping factor, but "the size of the bird's eye" when you look at the picture full size. The new Canon 1Ds Mark II with 16MPs and full 35mm sensore size should require a faster shutter speed than our 20D (if both pictures are taken with the same lens, same distance, same shaking) because if you could crop the 16MP digital sensor, it would still have 10MP, which give us more pixel to cover the same are the 20D did. In other words, the bird's eye will be bigger when a picture is taken with the Canon 1Ds Mark II than when it's taken with a 20D when the digital file is seen full size in your computer.
 
> [Hello Marcelo, what you say is indeed correct, however I try to think of what is going to be visible in the final form which for me is most often an 10x8, A4 print. I think this rule probably come about with regard to regular 6x4 print sizes anyway in which case a far bit can be lost in the wash. I have always felt that digital cameras are less foregiving to movement during exposure than film, just based on my observations.]
 
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