What Lens?

Adamcp898

I'm thinking about buying a lens as a gift for someone else and I'd appreciate if someone could help me out with what I should be looking for

They have a Canon 1200D with the 18-55 mm lens which came along with it. If this person wanted to do more landscape photography, what lens should I be looking out for? I don't know much about the differences myself.

Pete67

Generally a wide angle zoom is most commonly used for landscape work. You don't say what your budget is but you could consider the highly regarded Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM, or possibly one of the Canon ultrawides, such as the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM or the less costly Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM.

Tiriel

What is your budget?

Adamcp898

Pete67 wrote: »

Generally a wide angle zoom is most commonly used for landscape work. You don't say what your budget is but you could consider the highly regarded Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM, or possibly one of the Canon ultrawides, such as the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM or the less costly Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM.

Many thanks for your reply

Tiriel wrote: »

What is your budget?

I had been thinking ~€3-400, but this was more based on an assumption as to what lenses would cost for an amateur tbh and nothing else

I'd also rather buy new since it is a present for somebody else.

I see the 10-18 mm Canon one mentioned above for instance is €270 on Currys.ie but the other Canon is €600 and the Sigma €540.

What exactly makes one better than the other? if that can even be explained in layman's terms

and I guess perhaps more importantly will they offer a sizable difference to the 18-55 mm one which came with the 1200D?

Pete67

You don't have to pay those prices, for example the Sigma is on Amazon for £329 (Eur 390) with free UK delivery, use Parcel Motel to get it to Ireland for €3.99.

If you want to see sample images from any lens go to Flickr.com and search for the lens you are interested in, you will get hundreds of images.

CelticRambler

You'd be better putting your efforts into finding out what lens(es) the person really wants because what you think they're interested in might not correspond to their own ambitions! E.g. you might see them taking a photo of a landscape but they're seeing a picture of a tractor in a field and would be better off with a 200mm telephoto lens than a 10mm wide-angle.

And if they're only starting out, they might not even appreciate the relative values of different lenses. I had a young lad working alongside me at a festival back in July who had the same setup (1200D + 18-55mm) He'd never thought much outside that range until he borrowed my 55-250mm zoom, and fell in love with it. The quality of his composition improved immensely too, to the point where his photos were making up about a third of what went on our social network feed and got way more "likes" than the pro pics going up at the same time.