Essential 7d Lenses

Than001

Than001

Active member
I'm looking to buy a 7d body and am just wondering what are lenses would be good to get with it. Obviously looking for a good, ultra short focal distance lens and maybe another decent overall lens. Any recomendations?
 
Tamron 17-50 2.8 VC
Tokina 11-16 2.8
Canon 50 1.4

these 3 are a very good start, without spending a fortune.

the 18-135 kit lens is not that bad either. You can get some great images out of it.
 
Those 3 sound like good recommendations. I too am about to buy a 7D and have the chance at a one-time canon employee price purchase. What canon-specific lenses would be good to grab at employee prices?

I currently have some Nikon glass which I plan to use with adapters: 24mm f2.0 AIS, 85mm f1.8 AF, and 135mm f2.8 AIS

I was thinking of getting the 50mm f1.4 EF and possibly the 10-22mm EF. Maybe even a kit lens to leave on for picture-taking which I plan to do as well....
 
I think the 1.4 is overkill for the 7D- I have the 1.8 and it's plenty fast for most situations and a lot cheaper.

Noah
 
I think people are recommending the 1.4 due to the better focus wheel (for use with a follow focus) and overall better construction and not necessarily the speed, though it is a bonus.

Kegan
 
shrigg said:
Those 3 sound like good recommendations. I too am about to buy a 7D and have the chance at a one-time canon employee price purchase. What canon-specific lenses would be good to grab at employee prices?

I currently have some Nikon glass which I plan to use with adapters: 24mm f2.0 AIS, 85mm f1.8 AF, and 135mm f2.8 AIS

I was thinking of getting the 50mm f1.4 EF and possibly the 10-22mm EF. Maybe even a kit lens to leave on for picture-taking which I plan to do as well....
Click to expand...

It's strange to say but the kit lens is actually better suited for video than for picture taking. In other words, you want a sharper lens for pictures than for video because photos use the entire sensor.

Now, as far as your discount is concerned, can you wait until the 24-70 IS is released? BTW, anyone hear a date yet?
 
Tokina 11-16 is a must if you can afford it ..buy it.
30mm 1.4 sigma is nice as a low light normal lens.
I got an old manual nikon £80 50mm 1.4 and bought a nikon to eos adapter for £12 off ebay and a set of macro tubes for £7 and it represents amazing value.
 
Maybe a dumb question – how important is it to go with auto-focus lenses? I will be doing mostly static shots and interviews.

If have the following manual focus, Nikon mount, Zeiss lenses I use with my Letus.

28mm 2.0
85mm 1.4
50mm 1.4
 
I have this thought out back and forth. Here is my conclusion:

Its nuts to spend money on f2.8 (Canon) zooms since they are very expensive and big/heavy.
I suggest going with Zoom L lenses from Canon of the f4 series (17-40, 24-105).

It works great having the f4 L lenses using during day time mostly outside ( they are weather and dust sealed that no other company offers) and the zoom gives you an extra advantage to find your shot without changing all the time the lens. If you shoot inside or by night I switch to very light sensitive primes. The zooms whether its 2.8 or 4 can't catch up anyway.

So why bother with the super expensive f2.8 that give me just one stop over the f4 but cost at least twice and the advantage in low light is relatively small compared to primes.

Hope this makes sense.

Here is my recommendation:

Tokina 11-16 mm 2.8
Canon L 17-40 f4
Canon/Sigma 50mm 1.4 (dp review rated the Sigma way higher then the Canon, though Zeiss is not far in terms of pricing and might be better)
or Canon 50 mm 1.8 (for saving money)
Canon L 70-200mm 2.8 (a must)
Canon L 24mm 1.4 (for the rich pro)
or Sigma 20/24/28mm 1.8 read the reviews which of them is the better one in terms of sharpness

I'm personally not crazy about the 24-105 from Canon L series since my above mentioned lenses almost cover this range anyway.
I also read that sharpness is not as superb then the 17-40 which would be important to me.
Great advantage of the 24-105 it has image stabilizer (super helpful for video) and you can do crazy zoom effects.
 
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I use my 25-105L from my 5d on the 7d a lot.

Then I also use the Canon EFs 17-55 f2.8 too.

The Tokina 11-16mm is just a sick lens that everyone should have.

You get those 3 and you have most of the focal lengths covered.
 
If you spent the money on the 24-70 f2.8L
That lens can cover you for a long time.

I bought mine back in the day (mainly for stills)
and i have used it last week for video, and I really did not need any other lens for outside stuff.

For inside, yeah, maybe something wide.
I have not nailed that down yet.

Also, for me, as long as you have some sort of stabilizer, then in lens stabilization is not necessary, good to have, but not a must for me anyway.
 
I also have a Sigma 10-20
and it is good for wide shots, but switching from a 2.8 lens to that, makes me feel the lens is inferior, just because the way it darkens everything in the viewfinder.

With it, I have to shoot at f8 for me to like the sharpness, so it is only good at f8 and more stopped down. For that reason, I will likely replace it with a prime around 14mm.

I love the Canon 14mm L
but for the money I might go Sigma on that, but going the 14mm roue eliminates the use of ND filters, so I may look elsewhere.

Everyone likes the Zeiss lenses, and they have the best look at F8,
but to me, everyone one I used was soft wide open, and that is where I want to use it.

The sleeper of all Canon lenses is the 135mm SOFT FOCUS LENS!!!!!

YES I SAID THE SOFT FOCUS LENS!

I use to shoot lots of stills with this lens and it looks AMAZING.

It goes for around $500, and it shoots very sharp when turning the soft focus feature OFF.
 
On the 7D my EF-S 17-55mm 2.8 outperforms my Canon 24-80mm 2.8 L in terms of sharpness, CA and contrast. But on my 1DS the L lens is perfect.

If you ever get the chance, go to a local photo dealer and check out the EF-S 17-55 2.8. It also has IS.

This is only one scene, and so it's not a comprehensive test, but by and large these are the differences I usually see between the lenses:
http://picasaweb.google.com/smokecat20/Canon2480mm28LVersusEFS1755mm28#34
 
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I'm thinking mainly of the wide and 50 areas since I have fast nikon primes to cover 24/f2.0, 85/f1.8 and 135/f2.8.

As tempted as I am to grab a Canon 10-22mm at employee price, I'll just wait and get a Tokina for the 2.8ness of it :D

I probably will just get a 50/1.4 EF-S and the 17-55mm f2.8 IS. The 17-55 2.8 will be a superb leave-on-for-picture-taking lens too. However, budget may dictate that I just get a 18-135 kit lens as the leave-on lens... DECISIONS!!! :undecided
 
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I've done a helluva lot of research on this recently, and (sticking to a reasonable budget) chose the following lenses:

Canon f/1.8 50mm
Yes it's plastic and the focus ring isn't the greatest, but unless these things to you mean more than performance, or you have a LOT of extra cash (that wouldn't be better spent on tripods, lighting, sound devices, stabilizers, rigs etc etc), then I wouldn't think twice about it. For the money this is an exceptional lens. Very sharp (not that this is overly important for video) and outrageously good low-light performance (together with the good ISO noise levels of the 7D, you'll be able to shoot in almost any situation with this).

Tamron 17-50 2.8 with VC
You'll need a walkabout lens, and if you're shooting video - it will need image stabilization (or 'vibration control'), simply because this camera is extremely sensitive to jitter. Given the crop factor on the 7D, this or the Canon 17-55 are the two very good choices as they both go pretty wide. They also have a constant aperture of 2.8 which means you'll get good performance in low light. I'd really recommend the Tamron - for me, the huge difference in price isn't even half justified. With the money saved you could pay for lots of other useful goodies instead!

Tokina 11-16 2.8
This lens is the most exciting of the bunch. If you shoot anything narrative (like short films, music videos, even documentaries), you'll want this in your kit. It's ultra wide even on a cropped sensor, but not fisheye overkill (ie, your shots wont look like a 90s skater video)... and it's fast to boot! That means you can get beautifully shallow depth of field, low light performance AND wide, beautiful shots. For the price, there's nothing that compares.

For me, these three are all I need - they pretty much cover all the bases for narrative film work, and at a reasonable cost. You might want something with a bit more reach, but you'll pay a lot more and you'll need serious stabilization. In my experience it's just better to get closer to your subject if you can.
 
dominichicks said:
I've done a helluva lot of research on this recently, and (sticking to a reasonable budget) chose the following lenses:

Canon f/1.8 50mm
Yes it's plastic and the focus ring isn't the greatest, but unless these things to you mean more than performance, or you have a LOT of extra cash (that wouldn't be better spent on tripods, lighting, sound devices, stabilizers, rigs etc etc), then I wouldn't think twice about it. For the money this is an exceptional lens. Very sharp (not that this is overly important for video) and outrageously good low-light performance (together with the good ISO noise levels of the 7D, you'll be able to shoot in almost any situation with this).
Click to expand...

Go for the Version 1. Metal bayonet, solid construction, easier to focus. Same optics.
 
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