Dear all experts I have just bought a Canon EOS300 could be a similar product in line of Rebel 2000 as the manual of the camera suggests. Now I have also got 28-90 standard zoom lense with it. I wanted to buy better lenses for distant shooting as well as closeup.Can anyone of you suggest what lens to buy? When I look into the catalogs I find the price difference of an EF lense and an USM lense to be very high. What is the difference ? and why should I at all buy an USM lense. Is there a difference between EF and non EF lense. Also please let me know that if I would like to use a lense of some other manufacturer which is the best bid Thanks and Regards Siddhartha Roy

-- Siddhartha S Roy (siddhartha.s.roy@in.pwcglobal.com), January 25, 2002

Answers

well, siddhart, those USM lenses are also EF lenses. infact, EF is the mount on the camera, where you fix the lens. i guess all USM lenses have the same mount. USM stands for Ultra-Sonic Motor for autofocus (AF) while the lens you have (EF28-90mm) have MM (Micro-Motor) which is slightly slower and noisy. nobody in this forum will recommend you to keep that EF28-90mm lens. if you could get rid it, you would be much more happier. you can get suggestions on lenses from many others and if you take little more effort to go through this forum, you can find lots of useful information on lenses for your camera.

-- sajeev (chack74@yahoo.co.in), January 25, 2002.

Hi Sidhartha

I suggest not to go for a zoom lens now, Ohh that is my opinion, and well it depends on your shooting requirement. If you do not have much of distant shooting then get some good basic lenses. The lens that you got in your Camera kit is not of good quality. If you want to get a good quality sharp picture you should have good lenses. It is not the Camera that makes good picture, it is the lens that is most important. 28-80mm and 28-90mm lenses are Canon's bottom level lenses. You can check with Photodo.com or photo.net or any other sites for a review. Instead of spending money on long zoom, why dont you get a 50mm/1.8 lens(Just 80US$)? This is a very good lens that can give you good quality pictures though it is more of plastic in its body(Alternatively, Get 50mm/1.4 USM if budget allows). Along with this get 28-105mm USM lens. This is rated as the best among the consumer lenses for beginners. This is not that sharp as 50mm but gives definetly better quality pictures than your 28-90 (Alternatively, Get 28-135 USM if your budget allows).

You need EF lenses for your Rebel 2000. USM lenses are of almost same glass quality as of its non USM equivalents. Non USM uses an ordinary motor for AF where as USM uses an ultrasonic motor(Some model has Ultra sonic Ring motor, a better quality one). Advantage is that the focusing will be silent. Some of the USM lenses has a non rotating front which is very good for handling and also allow you to manually focus full time(A feature called FTM).

Do not buy lenses of other manufactures for your Canon camera. There are many advantages for this, you will have compatibility with latest cameras of Canon. And Canon lenses are allways far far better than its opponents. You pay more for them and you get what you pay for(A common usage here in this forum).

Good Luck!

-- George (george_mathew2k@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.

Siddhartha

Whilst it's easy to advise you to buy the best lenses you can afford you obviously have to draw the line somewhere. Excuse me if I'm wrong but I'd guess you're looking for a reasonably flexible kit at a reasonable price point. If you are happy with the quality of the results you get with the current lens stick with it and spend the rest of your budget on expanding you options.

For 'distance' suggest you look at a 75-300 USM For your close up requirement consider a 50mm lens and extension tubes.

It's best to buy Canon's own lenses and with USM - faster/quieter focus - but the extension tubes need not be Canon's.

-- John (j.ohn1@ntlworld.com), January 25, 2002.