EOS400D advice please

[Paul Drawmer]

On a whim, I've just bought a 400D from a work colleague.

20yrs ago I had an EA1, F1, plus a box of lenses, I then went to a sure shot that lived with me all the time, real good point and shoot, and I realised that I'm a snapper not a photographer.

I bought an Olympus 2.1Mp as my first digital £700! and for the last few years have enjoyed an Ixus for it's immediacy.

So, the new toy.
It's come with a couple of zooms. An 18-55 3.5 and a 90-300 4.5/5.6

I think that I'd rather have a faster 50mm instead of the slowish 18-55. I've seen the new 1.8 50mm at about £75 - am I right in thinking that this will be fine for an amateur occasional snapper?

When I'm looking at Canon lenses what identifies then as autofocus? I'm aware that EF designation goes back a long way, and I'm wondering how I'd know that a particular EF will work properly on the EOS400D?

Snaps here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drawmer/sets/

[markmullen]

On a 400D you can use both EF and EF-S lenses, all of which will autofocus. The 50mm 1.8 is a great sharp fast little lens and is very cheap, the only downside being it feels cheap and the AF sounds like a cement mixer. The results it provides are great though.

Have fun!

[SamHH]

Yes, the 50mm f1.8 will be fine. Be aware though that due to the 400D (and all except the top-level DSLRs) having a sensor smaller than 35mm film, the field-of-view will be 'cropped', giving an effective focal length 1.6 times greater than on film. So the 50mm will become a telephoto lens with a field-of-view equivalent to 80mm on your old film cameras.

All EF-designated lenses are autofocus and will work with the 400D. There are a few EF-mount lenses that don't autofocus, but these are specialist macro and tilt and shift lenses that are designated "MP-E" and "TS-E" respectively.

[AndyFoo]

I have the 50mm 1.8 lens. Bought it on a whim going to a gig! Great lens, seems very fast, agree the autofocus is noisy but at £80 it's definitely earned its keep.

I actually took it on my last holiday as I hadn't used it for much else than low level light gig photography. I ended up keeping it on most days. I now have a new love for fixed focal lengths. Makes you put more effort into the composition of what you're photographing.

[Paul Drawmer]

Quick responses, thanks!

I'll go for the 50MM then, at an 'effective' 80mm, it will make a great portrait lens, and be faster than the zoom with better depth of field control.

The 1.6 equivalent thing is interesting, the guy I bought the camera off looked puzzled when I asked him if the focal lengths were the 35mm length or not! Now I understand why the little zoom at 18 looks as I remember my old 28mm.

Blurry hell, there's a lot of buttons on this thing!

[DialSquare]

Also check out this...
http://www.usa.canon.com/content/rebelxt_tutorial/...
the tutorial is aimed specifically at the (Rebel XT) Canon EOS 350D but you should find it helpful hopefully

[RobDickinson]

Paul Drawmer said:

The 1.6 equivalent thing is interesting, the guy I bought the camera off looked puzzled when I asked him if the focal lengths were the 35mm length or not! Now I understand why the little zoom at 18 looks as I remember my old 28mm.

Blurry hell, there's a lot of buttons on this thing!

Technicaly the focal lengths dont change. The field of view does, its the same as taking a full frame pic then cropping out the middle. So its all still expressed in 35mm focal length distances.

For a 'standard' 50mm field of view you need something around 30mm, there isnt a decent cheap canon option, pick either the sigma 30mmf1.4HSM (Crop only) or canons 28mmf1.8 or 35mmf2.0, or 35L

Hopefully canon will come out with something like nikons 35mmf1.8 afs which is a superb little cheap lens.

As for the buttons, yes theres lots, the mechanics havnt changed, shutter, aperture, ISO is a much easier to control 3rd point in the exposure triangle.

The rest is fluff. Autofocus points/modes, drive modes, meetering modes etc.

[tinman0]

Paul Drawmer said:

I think that I'd rather have a faster 50mm instead of the slowish 18-55. I've seen the new 1.8 50mm at about £75 - am I right in thinking that this will be fine for an amateur occasional snapper?

I have a nifty 50 and rarely use it. The problem is that for what I take pictures of (landscapes and cars) the 50 is just to narrow. It's virtually unusable at social functions unless you want to do portraits of everyone and forgo any sort of group shot.

The 18-55 kit lens is a not a bad bit of kit in my opinion. I was 'forced' to use it when MrsT broke my big Sigma one day, so for several months just had the kit lens and it was fine.

The nifty 50 does have its place, but I'd be hard pressed to use it as my default lens.

[FunkyNige]

I found this very handy for explaining all the various buttons and features when I bought my 400D.

I also have the 50mm lens on it and agree with what people have been saying above - it was great on a 35mm camera, but now it's "turned into" a 80mm lens on the digital camera it's not as useful as I found it on my film camera.

[Killwilly]

Paul, you don't say whether your 18-55 is the IS version, if not, you could do worse than get the new one. The IS version is much improved on it's predecessor and can give some brilliant results. My advise would be to learn to use your camera before spending lots of money on lenses.

Alan