Canon Lenses

[ahbriggs]

Hi,

I've just recently purchased myself a location lighting kit and I'm now looking at investing in a lens. I own a Canon 5D Mk III and I'm looking for the ideal lens to best suit my needs. I like to shoot people and portraits and I want a lens that is both sharp and crisp in image quality. I have been looking at the 70-200 and the 24-70 both second generation. I'm leaning towards the 70-200 due to the lack of an image stabilizer within the 24-70. I would like to hear opinions and recommendations about each lens as well as what people find themselves shooting with the most.

Thanks,

Ashley

[k bennett]

I find I use my 70-200 much more when shooting individual portraits in either the studio or on location. The 24-70 is a nice lens, but 70mm isn't long enough for most portraits for the way I shoot.

I own four of the 70-200 Canon lenses. (Yeah, I have a problem...) The new 70-200/2.8 is pretty amazing, but the 70-200/4 I.S. is no slouch, and it's half the weight and half the cost. I use the f/4 lens most of the time, and break out the f/2.8 only when I absolutely need the wider aperture, which isn't very often when shooting location portraits.

[Sheldon N]

I have both the 24-70 and 70-200 version II lenses, they are excellent, pretty much on par with L primes for their respective focal lengths at overlapping apertures. I find I use the 24-70 lens more often, simply based on focal length preference.

[Ellis Vener]

I'd get an EF 85mm f/1.8 and a 135mm f/2L over the 70-200mm f/2.8L. Image quality is one reason, larger maximum aperture is a second, weight and size are two more.

The 24-70mm f/2.8L II is an exceedingly  high quality lens  I would not discount it just because it lacks IS.

The 70-200mm f/2.8L  IS II is no performance slouch either but is really big and really heavy. if you discount size and weight as a factor try renting one for a week, carrying it around and working with it daily and you'll see what I mean.

Which ever lens or lenses you end up with, do yourself and your clients a favor and get either the LensAlign Mark II (http://michaeltapesdesign.com/lensalign.html) and FocusTune software (http://michaeltapesdesign.com/focustune.html combination or the Datacolor Spyder LENSCAL target (http://spyder.datacolor.com/portfolio-view/lenscal/) and tune the performance of your camera's autofocus system for your individual lenses.

[David Anderson]

IMHO the 85 1.2L is the best lens Canon make followed by the 135 F2L.
Both are exceptionally sharp and under f2 the 85 has a look that you wont get from a zoom.

Comes at a price of course..

That said, I've been playing with a loan 28-70 2.8L II and could happily shoot with just that and the 70-200 2.8 for
about 90% of my shots..

[ahbriggs]

I think I'll stick with the 24-70, I currently rent the first generation lens and I use it a lot. I will eventually gravitate towards specialty lenses like the 85mm but I essentially want a single purchase solution at the moment. I have noticed back focus with certain lenses but I never thought to look into getting it corrected. I appreciate the advice Ellis and I think I will go with DataColour.

[snoleoprd]

You might want to try Focal software for doing the lens calibration it will take the guess work out of it and is very reliable. The software is well written and works very well, much better in my opinion than some of the other solutions, which I have used.

http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/


Alan

[Rhossydd]

much better in my opinion than some of the other solutions, which I have used.

My experience too. Getting the right afma setting can significant;y improve AF performance.

I'd also agree that the 70-200 f2.8 is rather a big lump for portrait work, great lens though.