Page last updated 2010-02-08.
My camera lenses
On this page:
current lenses previously owned lenses
© Heikki Siltala - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
This page describes the camera lenses I've used. There is a separate page to describe camera bodies. Some deprecated cameras can be found on Nytech ND-4020 and Kodak F300 pages.
Camera lenses summary:
It has been said that to improve the quality of photos the first thing to do is to learn how to photograph. The second thing to do is to buy better lenses. All the rest like buying the latest camera body is said to be insignificant. I personally found the lenses to be more interesting to discuss about than the bodies. Actually it is more interesting to use them than to discuss thme! People often ask me what camera body I use. I feel that question should be what lenses do I use.
The equipment you need depends on what you're about to do with them. There is no single lens that is perfect for all uses. My lens setup is strongly weighted by the fact that they must work well on cat show photography and they must match my shooting style. A guy that walks the sunny beaches or a bird watcher might choose a whole different lens setup.
I encourage you to contact the large consulting company called the internet before considering any lens purchase. A couple of minutes with Google can save you a lot of money. What you should remember is that you are buying the lens to yourself. Always keep in mind what are your needs and your expectations. There are no two photographers that have identical needs.
I made a public promise to myself that I won't be buying new photography equipment in year 2010. To make this promise to come true I did some preparations for this year. I have an interesting modern autofocus telephoto prime ready to get revealed at some point of year 2010. So be prepared :-D
Current lensesI' m now officially a prime guy. Due the fact that I have found primes (aka fixed focal length lenses) to offer a better image quality and generally a larger maximum aperture than the zooms I prefer primes over zooms. Feel free to feel vice versa. Currently I own no zoom lenses but just primes.
Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L USM (ERP 1100 euros)
I had a dilemma. I could not figure out if I should get Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM or this prime so decided to try them both.
The 70-200mm was a heavy and complex-looking piece of stee. This prime feels much simpler and more agile.
For me these two lense fell into the same category: at catshows with 1.6x body they are for paparazzi type of shots.
The difference between them is simple: the zoom
is much more versatile but with major drawbacks on size and on weight. The low light performance
of these two can't easily be compared since the zoom has image stabilizer but f/2.8 while
the prime has no IS but goes to f/2.0. The prime is the sharper one.
The image quality of Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L USM is so high that I could write a whole page about it. If you are looking for the best IQ available this lens won't let you down. What I like in addition to the IQ is that it's almost as handable as my other smaller and wider primes. I can easily handle the camera, carry it around for numerous hours, lift the system up and down and change between landscape and portrait without feeling the system weight slowing me down. The price of this lens is high but I have found it to be well worth the investment. But if you like to save some money and have no urge for f/2.0 you might consider getting Canon EF 200mm f/2.8 L II USM as an alternative, at least if you have a full frame body. It is cheaper and still it is claimed to be the best Canon lens ever made image quality wise.
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM (ERP 430 euros)
The performance of Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is rather similar to Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. I don't know if basis the optical formula
is the same but I can easily imagine it is. Both lenses provide good image quality with rich colors. The image
characteristics including the tendency to show green/purple color shifts on out of focus
areas are almost identical. The 50 mm shows more purple CA on strong contrast edges and the 85 mm gives better background blur
largerly due to longer focal length. Both are good lenses. They have a plastic bodies which keeps the weight down but might make them feel a little cheap.
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM (ERP 470 euros)
Sigma is not just a company that makes cheap third party lenses. Actually they seem to become the innovators of the
lens industry. First they were among the first companies to put out 18-200mm superzoom. Then they
put out a circular fisheye and the great Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM diagonal fisheye for 1.6x crop sensor bodies.
What I couldn't expect them to do was to put out a standard 50mm lens for all sensor sizes with a brand new optical design.
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM is a very well-built and a heavy lens. It much larger and heavier than the classic Canon equivalent. The image quality is generally excellent. The photos are sharp and there are no clear color shifts on out of focus ares that are an issue with the Canon. Also the background blur beats all others 50 mm lenses I've seen and even a pile of those of longer focal length. I would highly recommend this lens to all users but there is a sad issue of front focus. The lens shows rather constant front focus when shooting objects at close distances. It appears to be in the characteristics of the lens design since it the same with all the bodies I've tested it with. My copy of the lens was tested by the Finnish importer Foka and appeared to be in perfect condition.
If you plan to buy this lens you should be ready to learn how to handle the front focus issue. You might compensate it by you camera body's autofocus microadjustment feature or you might just focus slightly off the subject. If you learn to live with that you can expect great results.
50 mm focal length was very useful for me with 1.6x crop body but gets much less use with 1.3x crop body.
Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX DG (ERP 470 euros)
Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX DG is clearly the largest 28 mm lens I've seen. The outer body appears to be plastic but I assume
the weight comes from metallic internals. So far I have used it only for a few hundred shots. It appears to be a solid performer
but this is all I can say for now. I'll have to use it more to be able to write a more detailed review.
Tokina 17mm f/3.5 AT-X Pro (ERP 270 euros)
Tokina 17mm f/3.5 AT-X is currenlty the widest lens I have. I call this lens an underrated gem.
On a 1.6x crop body it is a well-performing wide angle lens. I can easily recommend it for example
for landscape shooting. On 1.3x crop body it is no longer a regular wide angle but turns into a special super wide angle lens.
It could have a larger maximum aperture but it seems impossible to find a faster 17 mm lens with a decent price tag or
to be honest with any price tag.
Tokina 17mm f/3.5 AT-X was my first lens that was built like a real pro lens but still was far from the pro price. It is really a bargain to sell a lens of this quality with that price! Sharpness and colors are very good. You can really get satisfying results with this lens. What bothered me first is a significant tendency to show chromatic aberration of various colors. Then I learned that this is very typical with all wide angle lenses. The CA is less prominant at smaller apertures.
Lensbaby Composer (ERP 190 euros for framework and double class optic)
I wanted something very different and now I got it! Lensbaby Composer is really different from all the other lenses I have. You'll
have to reinvent
your style and you eventually will if you keep using this lens. Since so far I have had change to use it only at
one cat show I have to postpone the deeper review
to a later date. But remember this: this lens is not a toy. You can do a lot with it and get wonderful results!
I currently have three swappable optics for my Lensbaby Composer: double class optic, single class optic and soft focus optic. I also have the creative aperture kit. Double class optic has the widest range of different uses. Single class optic is very soft and gives you all the distortions you want. Perhaps you don't need to go any softer than this so you won't be needing the plastic optic. Soft focus optic is different from the others. The focus doesn't have a sweet spot so you don't tilt and shift it. You just use it like any other manual focus lens and get soft results.
Previously owned lensesCanon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM (ERP 2000 euros)
It was a hard decision whether or not to buy Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM. I wasn't willing to
invest so much money on a single lens. Finally after reading various reviews and user opinnions
I decided to take a shot.
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM is a good mixture of a medium telephoto zoom lens and a low light performer. Due to the image stabilization I was able use it indoors at dim lit cat show halls. Of course the low light peformance has its limits due to f/2.8 maximum aperture and the fact that you arms tend to shake a lot when holding all the weight of the lens. I took this lens with me when I was sure that there is at least a decent lighting at the show hall. In the darkest show halls I prefered to leave this home. In those halls f/1.4 and f/1.8 primes were the ones I needed. The best use for this lens at cat shows was to take paparazzi type of shots. With 50mm and 85mm primes on 1.6x crop body I had to be rather close to the subject and paparazzi type shots weren't possible.
The overall image quality of this lens good. It might be as good as it will ever gets with zooms. At f/2.8 Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is still significantly sharper. The image quality of the zoom gets even better when stopped down and is stunning starting from f/4. I can easy compare its image quality at f/5.6 to the primes that I have. Only Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L USM is still visibly shaper.
The mechanical construction of this lens is both excellent and terrible: this is a professionally built lens for pros so the weight and size have become the limiting factors. With Canon EOS 40D it was a must to have the battery grip. I decided to sell this lens due the fact that my shooting style and the weight of this lens don't mix. I like to move fast, lift the camera quickly up an and hold it up for extended periods of time. For that kind of use the weight of the lens was simply too much.
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM (ERP 400 euros)
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM is a very good lens. It clearly proves that third party lenses aren't crap.
The image quality is very good or even superb beating the classic Canon 50 mm.
The colors are vivid and accurate, perhaps the best colors I've seen on this focal length category.
Images are sharp and the background blur is also rather nice. There seems to be virtually no CA.
The mechanical structure of the lens is solid and gives a feeling of high quality.
The autofocus is fast and reliable which is uncommon to lenses of this focal length.
If you don't like third party lenses it is now your final opportunity to reconsider! This lens rises the bar of what can be done without a tripod or a monopod. Setting the body to ISO 3200, shutter speed to 1/60 s and aperture to f/1.4 you can go hand held where no-one can expect it.
Actually I was considering to purchase Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM but decided to go with the Sigma due to larger maximum aperture, better sharpness at large apertures and due to a smaller price. That seems to have been the right choice.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM (ERP 390 euros)
The Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM was my reliable workhorse and never let me down. The photos taken with it had good colors,
high contrast and good sharpness. As I shoot indoors without a flash I sometimes needed to run the lens down to f/1.4 and wasn't
disappointed. Of course the lens gives better sharpness at f/2.0 and at f/2.8 than at f/1.4 but when there is an urge for
light you just need all the aperture you can get. Probably the only things to complain are the facts that the lens shows
green/purple color shifts on out of focus areas and also some chromatic
aberration on high contrast edges.
The lens has a plastic body which might feel a little bit cheap but also keeps the weight down. The lens lasted for tens of thousands of shots but eventually started to have an issue on iris control. Occassionally the blades wouldn't return to fully open state and that resulted "Err 01" on the body. Due to this issue I decided to replace it with Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM.
Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical Macro (ERP 415 euros)
Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical Macro
used to be the lens of my dreams at the time I bought the 300D body.
At that time I consired this lens to be too expensive. After doing
some excessive shooting at Seinäjoki cat shows
4th March 2006 and
5th March 2006 I noticed
that almost all the photos were shot using with the 28 mm prime, the 50 mm prime
and the 70-300 mm zoom at the
wide end. I found myself changing lenses all the time. I started to think
that it would be nice to have a zoom that covers my primary focal
length range from 28 mm to 70 mm. Then I remembered that Tamron had this nice zoom with
good overall image quality and made the purchase. The maximum aperture is fixed over the whole focal length range which was
a must for me since I shoot with manual exposure.
The Tamron zoom is made of all plastic (excluding the metallic EF mount) but the build quality seemed to be OK compared to its price. The zoom handled nicely and looked cool. But it wasn't really the lens for me. Like most zooms it wasn't very sharp at wide open. It started to be sharp around f/5.6 and since I shoot indoors without a flash I couldn't cope with that. In some other uses it might be more usable. Also the speed of autofocus was sometimes an issue at cat shows.
Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 (ERP 240 euros)
To be honest I was not going to buy this lens. What I wanted was a f/1.8 or f/2.0 lens but due to price
I decided that f/2.8 must do. I now have a mixed memories on this lens. The image quality is generally
good but the sharpness could be better. I would expect a prime to perform better wide open. The sharpness of course gets
better when stopped down. The lens has a micro motor AF which gives the lens an easy recognizable autofocus sound:
something like a bee in a matchbox. After a while I decided to collect some more money and purchased
a faster Sigma.
Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM diagonal fisheye (ERP 600 euros)
I was looking for more fun for cat show action shots and read that Sigma had just launched
Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM diagonal fisheye giving full angle of view on APS-C size sensor body. I couldn't
resist the tempation to get one. This is a very fine lens! The best part is the autofocus:
despite of the very wide focal length the autofocus seems to work fast and it gets
the focus even at indoors. The image quality is so great that you can expect with an fisheye. It wins
Peleng 8mm f/3.5 hands down. The are of course CA at high contrast edges and you
really don't get much background blur but these are the things to expect with all 10 mm lens.
Peleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye (ERP 380 USD)
There was the time when I used to think that the wide end is more exciting than the tele end.
I wanted to get even wider than with my 17 mm Tokina.
I did some research and ended up ordering Peleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye from Russia.
I found the Peleng lens to be 100 percent great fun. Using a fisheye is a separate
form of art compared to using regular lenses.
The lens peforms tolerably. Don't expect the image quality to be superb. Just have fun with it or switch to Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM for image quality. CA is often present. At wide open the images are soft but at f/8 the things start to get better. The depth of field with a 8 mm lens is so enormous that with good light using and using f/11 or f/16 you'll end up focusing with the focusing scale, not with the viewfinder. This is where the lens works best: lot of light, set to f/16 and focus using the focusing scale.
The lens is made in Belarus and has in a positive sense a full metal soviet-like construction. It is a manual-focus manual-aperture manual-everything M42 screw mount lens and can be attached to EOS body with an adapter. The adapter is a simple metal ring with no optics involved so the image quality doesn't suffer. The lens cap is made of metal and can easily come off and scratch the front element. I used to put a microfiber lens cleaning cloth between the lens and the lens cap and it tightened the cap up and protected the front element.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II (ERP 105 euros)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II was my second lens right after the kit lens and rapidly became THE LENS in my
setup due to its good image quality and large aperture (f/1.8). If you want something cheap but good go and
buy this lens - it doesn't get any simpler! It was largely due to this lens that
I was able to develop my own shooting style at cat shows.
The cat shows are typically held indoors in
dim-lit halls. Traditionally most photographers have been forced to use a flash but I just boosted up the ISO and gave my
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II a go. I would have never believed that it is actually possible
to go on shooting without a flash and still get well-exposed results in those dim-lit halls.
And outside the cat shows this lens continued to offer good results as well. For a beginner this lens was really a dream came true.
The image quality of Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II can be considered good - far better than with the kit lens - and it is a lens that is a delight to be carried around. There is contrast and color. The cons are the cheap plastic design and a somewheat harsh background blur. This lens is designed for autofocus only. It has a very short focusing ring movement and no focusing scale.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II got eventually replaced by Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM.
Sigma 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 APO Macro Super II (ERP 250 euros)
Sigma 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 APO Macro Super II is a low cost telezoom lens. It
provides decent image quality. It is said to pefrorm better than many other telezooms in its price class.
I liked the contrast and colors when shooting at the wide end (70-120 mm). The sharpness
was decent even wide open and got better at smaller apertures (f/8, f/11).
At the tele end the contrast weakens, the colors turn to blue and gray and the sharpness suffers.
The lens has a special macro mode having a macro reproduction ratio of 1:2 so it can be used to
some macro shooting. Of course it is not a real 1:1 reproduction ratio macro lens but still offers a cheap way to try
what macro photography is all about.
My story with Sigma 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 APO Macro Super II ended because my requirements on image quality got higher and the AF motor or mechanism of the lens became very noisy. I sold the lens for a some tens of euros.
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (aka the kit lens)
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom was my first lens and was purchased
with 300D body.
I purchased it because it was widely recommended as a first lens
due to a very low price.
The lens is very light and has a full plastic construction.
Tt still provides
tolerable image quality for beginners. As with other cheap zooms the image
quality gets better when stopped down.
Many sources and my personal findings suggest that the lens is at its best between f/8 and f/11.
If you are short of money or don't know what lens to choose or
don't care what lens to use then Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 is the lens
for you. If you don't set your expectations too high you cat get wonderful
photos with it!
Rubinar 500mm f/8
Mirror lenses have some special characteristics compared
to "lens lenses". They tend to be much cheaper, smaller and lighter than the equivalent focal length regular lenses.
They provide weaker contrast, they are less sharp and they have a fixed aperture.
With this Rubinar I was shooting at f/8 all the time. What others love and others hate is the fact that mirror lenses
produce a ring-shaped background blur which can look artistic or terrible depending
on the situation and the taste. The Rubinar needs lots of light if used without a tripod and if you like to get manually focused in-focus
photos. BTW there is also 500 mm f/5.6 Rubinar and 1000 mm f/10 Rubinar available.
MC Jupiter-9 85mm f/2
MC Jupiter-9 85mm f/2 is a lens with a very interesting historical background. It is based on an Carl Zeiss' optical formula
created in 1930's and used on pre-WW2 Zeiss Sonnar 85mm f/2.0. The factories of Carl Zeiss where
located in Germany and after the second world war they were left on the east side. The factories then
got transferred to the Soviet Union and were rebuilt there. The production of the lens started again and continues
even today in Russia. The optical formula of the lens remains the same although the lens has undergone some
design changes.
I purchased this lens mainly out of curiosity and partially because I was looking for a fast lens (f/2.0 or faster) with longer focal length than the classic 50 mm. At that time I didn't have the Canon's 85 mm. The build quality of the lens is fine: it is all metal and glass and it weights about a ton. The lens has a M42 screw mount and fits to EOS mount using an adapter. The simplest adapter is a metal ring having M42 screw in the inner surface and EOS mount on outer surface. I used a special EOS mount adapter that lit the focus confirmation light when a proper focus was achieved. I also managed to attach a non-brand lens hood to the lens using the filter thread.
My findings indicate that it is true what has been written about this lens. At wide open (f/2) it is a soft lens and should suit perfectly to portrait work if you like the special softness. The background blur is very pleasant and the whole photo has a dreamy feeling. Somewhere around f/4 and f/5.6 it turns to sharp and at f/8 it is sharp as a razor. The out-of-focus experience is very pleasing. Objects a little bit out of focus have a mist or soft cast around them like it was a painting. Objects more out of the focus range become nicely blurred. This is probably due to the optical formula and due the fact that the lens has an iris of 15 blades. So much iris blades is totally unheard of at these days of mass production and cost-effectiviness.
Jupiter-37AM 135mm f/3.5
I didn't take lot of photos with my Jupiter-37AM 135mm f/3.5 but looked good.
Colors looked nice'n'natural and I couldn't complain about the sharpness.
The fundamental difference to Jupiter-9 85mm was the aperture change behavior.
At wide open the 85 mm lens gives blurred photos that suit fine for portrait photography. When
the aperture closes the blurring goes away and the photos turn to sharp. The 135 mm lens doens't
operate like this but behaves in a typical way. It seems to be rather sharp wide open and gets sharper and sharper when stopped down.
I used the lens with special EOS
mount adapter that lit the focus confirmation light when a proper
focus was achieved.
The lens was made obsolete by Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L USM and got sold.
Tamron 2X MC7 C-AF1 BBAR teleconverter (ERP 200 euros) was my secret weapon when shooting the moon. The results can been seen on the front page even today. I loved to shoot the moon and to get even closer with Sigma 70-300 mm I decided to purchase this 2x teleconverter that converted my Sigma to slow 140-600 mm lens. A cheap telezoom and 2x teleconverter is often considered a bad combination and yes, it is true. The contrast becomes rather weak and the sharpness is gone. But it suited rather well on shooting the moon because the moon is so bright. I tested the Tamron teleconverter with some other lenses too but never fell in love with the results due to visible decrease in saturation, contrast and sharpness.
Notice that Tamron 2X MC7 C-AF1 BBAR is a 7-element teleconverter and should give far better results than some cheap 4-element 2x teleconverters. The Tamron also has a nice feature: it doesn't stop the body from autofocusing. Typically attaching 2x teleconverter informs the body that the autofocus should be disabled due to insufficient light. This Tamron one doesn't do that and the camera keeps the autofocus going. On bright light situations the autofocus hunts a little but eventually gets the focus. In low light situations it is sensible to switch the lens to MF for good.
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© Heikki Siltala - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
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