Lenses -help needed please

the question is, what do you want to photograph with them.

 

For travel and general all round use you can’t go wrong with the 24-70mm. It’s easily my most used lens on full frame.

 

Thank you guys for your quick replies. After reading them I feel a bit stupid coz I forgot to mention what type of photography I'm planning to do and what camera body (full/cropped) I have. I am planning on shooting weddings and headshots/portraits mostly, I will be using a 5D mk3.

@colorspace, ty for your detailed explanation. Do we have to calibrate Sigma Art lenses before using them?

 

I use my 85mm and 135mm for portraits/headshots. The 135mm is excellent value for money.

 

Primelenses like 35/50/85 are the "holy trinity" for portraits. 99% of the time I use the 85mm for portraits.

For weddings i use the 24-70 and a 70-200 on a 2nd body.

 

Thank you very much guys for your replies, thanks to you I've got an idea on the lenses that I will be looking at purchasing.

 

Just to throw a spanner into your list, I would also check out the Canon 100mm 2.8L lens. it's image stabilised, works as a really sharp portrait lens, and will allow you to photograph details at weddings. the sigma 50mm is superb and the 24-70mm is a very good all around lens. if i had to carry two lenses to a wedding, it would be the 24-70mm and the 100mm.

 

For the 5D III?

Because no IS inside Body (like Sony) a lot of people forget those two nice lenses:

Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM for the wide shots (if you need to go wider, stitch two frames)
Canon EF 100 mm 2,8 L IS USM Macro for the light tele-work, portraits and detail-shots

50mm? Crop the 35mm shot!
24mm? Two fast shots and stitch two frames!

Third lens?
Sigma 14mm F1,8 ultra-wide, because stitching a 14mm field-of-view with a 35mm lens is not a real option for a fast event like a wedding.

I own the 16-35 f4 and use this lens 99% at 16/18 or 35mm.
Also owned the 85mm 1.8 but changed to a 100mm macro because most of the time the close-up focus limit was a big NO-GO for me. Why is there no 100mm Macro 2.0? Would be the perfect child of 85mm 1.8 and 100mm 2.8!
A few days ago I bought the 24-70 and I will sell this "oh so useful" lens in a few days. 24 is not 16 and 70 is not 85/100 light-tele so it is a compromise lens from start to finish for "one body only"-users. If you have two camera bodies (and in weddings this is a MUST, because of B A C K U P) use two primes and you are ready to go.

My two cents ...

 

I will comment only on Canon lenses
can't go wrong with 24-70 mm mk2, even if you are not yet sure what focal length is your favourite
- 50 mm 1.2 - totally not worth the money, unless you really need 50 mm and 1.2 aperture
- 85 mm 1.2 - super great lens, but for many reasons I would rather choose the new 85 1.4 with IS, cheaper, lighter, super fast focusing compared to 1.2, sharper on 1.4, less CA, and obviously IS

 

I know the difference is only one frame, but if you are outdoors 35 is great, a quick second picture (with enough overlap of 40-50%) is really fast and NO-problem. Stitching 3 frames while shot handheld (no Shift-lens, no tripod no nothing) involves more concentration. So if you know that 35mm would not cut it for the next 100 pictures (indoor small dance space) instead of stitching two 35 files the whole time switch to the 14 and crop to 16/24 by taste.

What are you talking about? A 35 or 50 (if both have the same f-stop of 2.0 or 1.4) do nothing more than crop via different FOV. Distortion....do you mean defects inside the lens design? Zooms have a lot of distortions (like barrel or pincushion) primes almost none, so 35 and 50 are also the same. I think you mix up DOF/distortion with distance to subject/background AKA perspective.

As I have already wrote ...if you need a third lens (35 and 85/100 macro cut it 90-95%) and do not want to stitch 3 35-frames, get the ultra-wide. Much more useful than a 200 or 600 tele and to write it for the last time and anybody could try it @ home ...a 50 between a 35 and 85/100 is useless in these days of 30/36/42/45 MP bodies. Crop the 35 to 50 an loss some pixels ...nobody will know (even not with the "old" 22MP 5DIII). You could even go 24/28 and 85/100 only with 30/36/42/45 MP bodies. I have used a 50 in my D700-days and very often wished it was a 40 for some more extra space. Now, thanks to more than 12MP-bodies you need a lot less lenses (instead larger memory-cards and more hard-disk-space )

 

NO, not compression but DOF. 85/100 vs 300 has of course a different DOF on a chip/film.
Here take a look:

Hidden Content:

**Hidden Content: You must click 'Like' before you can see the hidden data contained here.**

"Notice that the perspective compression is identical in both shots. The underlying principle of this compressed look is - distance, not lens length, affects perspective."

 

Want a 80mm FOV out of a 35mm lens? Crop it! You will of course lose resolution. Will you get the same DOF? No. If you want ultimate almost none-DOF ..shot anything with a 200mm 2.0 and stitch the FOV you want (aka Bokeh Panorama). If DOF is not so important ...crop because compression is affected by distance and not focal length. With 35 and 85 you get two nice DOF AND FOV options. Almost every wedding photographer I know that uses primes only uses 24/28/35 for the wide end and 85/100/135 for the long end. The 24-105 is a great zoom lens to cover that range (Nikon even has a 24-120 if I remember correctly) but those zooms are f4 and not f1.8/f1.4 for the nice DOF effect which is the trend right now (maybe f64 will be a thing in a few years, who knows ).

 

I didnt mention the 100mm macro (2.8 L) coz I've got it, I also have the 70-200mm 2.8

Is it possible to stitch two (or more) wide shots together. I would think it's impossible coz of the wide angle lenses distorsion unless the overlap is huge to get rid of those distorted area.