I have a Canon Rebel I purchased a few years ago with an EF35-80 lens. Sometimes I wish I had a little more wide angle and telephoto capability. I'm considering the following lenses: EF75-300, EF80-200, and the 28-105. Also, a local camera shop has recommended the Tamron 28-200. In terms of my use of the camera, I like to take portraits of my family, landscape scenery, and some wildflower close ups. I'd appreciate guidance on my best direction to go in. Thanks!

-- Gene Stevens (gene@verisys.com), September 05, 2000

Answers

The 28-105 will be your best choice in terms of optical quality. The others are going to be less useful, in my opinion. Most of your photos will be inthe 50mm range (a good case for the 50mm prime), so the longer than 100 range will not be all that great, and just might encourage you to zoom in instead of walking up and getting the proper angle of view. My two cents.

-- Chris Gillis (chris@photogenica.net), September 05, 2000.

I completely agree with Chris about the 28-105 Canon. It's got sharp optics (sharper than anything else you listed), it's compact, and it has a very fast ring type USM focusing motor that allows you to use Full Time Manual (FTM) focus with it to touch up after autofocusing or changing what the camera has chosen to focus on. If you never used FTM before, it's a real treat.

The 75-300 can be had with micro motor USM which is not the same thing and doesn't offer FTM. The Canon 100-300 USM does though. Unfortunatly, none of these are very sharp past 200mm. The EF80-200 is cheap junk much like Canon's EF28-80. Stay away from them.

Tamron's 28-200 is probably the best of the lot for the really wide ranging zooms and they really are handy, but it's not very sharp. I own one and use it sometimes when I want to take only one lens and think I might need some reach. It will provide good snapshots and acceptable 8X10's if you aren't too picky. But I'd hate to have it as my only lens. The 28-105 USM or Canon's 28-135 USM with image stabilization are the best reasonably priced mid-range zooms in the Canon lineup.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), September 06, 2000.