Farrah … the Canon 24-105mm f/4 USM (B&H) is probably your most versatile choice here.

Neil vN

Sayed … I don’t have experience with either lens. I would naturally gravitate towards the marquee lens, ie, the Nikon … but that said, every report I’ve seen on the various Sigma macro lenses have been very favorable. So it would seem like you can’t go wrong either way.

Neil vN

I’m completely a newbie in fotografy. I’ve Nikon D90 with it’s kit lens and Sigma 17-70 USM lens. Now i wish to buy a macro/micro lens mainly for copying photographs/paints and for portrait work. I conclude my list into tow ie, 1) Nikon 60mm AF-S f/2.8g micro & 2) Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG macro. Focal length is not a prob for me as i don’t want to shoot anime. Also focus speed is not a deal for me, as I use MF for copying. I need sharper, crisper, colorful, high resolutioned one from the above lenses. Thanks in advance for your valuable suggestion.

Ivan, the Canon 50mm f1.2 is a fantastic optic, but there is an inherent problem with the optical design .. the focus shifts at close distances. It may or may not be a problem, depending on how you use the lens.

Neil vN

could I ask you what is your opinion about Canon 50 1.2 ? I’ve got Canon 50mm f1.8 mkI, sometimes I like the images it produces, but it feels so unreliable – slow AF, hunts in low light etc – I missed a lot of shots because of this. I’d like to upgrade it, but when I borrowed my friend’s 50 1.4 I didn’t see much improvement over the 1.8 (my 1.8 was sharper until ~ f2 and somehow the 1.8 seemed lock in the focus more reliably)

So I was wondering how the 50 1.2 compares to those two… It seems to get quite mixed reviews – some people like it, but quite a few complain about its back focus issues and say the image quality is not that different from 1.4. Do you have any experience with the 50 1.2, which you could possibly share ?

I’ve got 5D mkII, 16-35 mkII, 50 1.8, 100 f2 and 70-200 f4 IS but I found myself taking more & more pictures with the 50mm, even though the Canon 50mm 1.8 is kind of ridiculous. I’m shooting mainly family & friends as a hobby, sometimes portraits, locations, events and music bands for my webdesign business (mostly with the 16-35 and 100mm). Do you think the 50 1.2 would fit in this setup?
I’m not so keen on a mid range zoom – 24-70 is quite bulky and I’m not so keen on 24-105 f4 either, my 70-200 f4 is often too slow to be useful indoors.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Anyway, thank you very much for what you are already doing – your books and site are really great!

Best Regards

Ivan R.

Laura … the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II, is one lens I can unfortunately not recommend. My experience with the 5 copies I had tried, was miserable. And it was this lens that finally tipped me over into switching back to Nikon when I saw how absolutely brilliantly sharp the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 was in comparison.

Neil vN

I need a wide angle lens, but cannot decide on which would be the best choice. My lenses so far are Canon 50 1.2, 85 1.8, and 100 2.8 macro. Initially, I had planned on only doing portraits and lifestyle shots (which required indoor shooting – hence the primes), but lately I’ve been asked to shoot weddings as a second shooter. I had my eye on the 35 1.4, but now think the 16-35 2.8 might be better. BUT you mention the 24-70 as a great lens. I just got my 5D Mark II, so any advice would be awesome.

Thanks!

Laura N.

I’m going to have to go with Lance.

Especially in that the 70-200mm focal length makes most sense (as a portrait type lens) on a full-frame body. It’s just too tight on a crop sensor.

Neil vN

However, I have used both the 24-70 and 70-200 VR, on crop-sensor bodies (D300 and D7000).

My thoughts are thus: while these are both excellent lenses, they both leave somewhat to be desired when used on a crop-sensor body. The 24-70 becomes an odd 36ish – 100ish lens, which is moderately useful as a portrait lens I suppose, but it’s neither particularly wide at the short end, nor particularly long at the long end. I’ve more experience with that lens than with the 70-200, which I rented once for an engagement session. That lens becomes a monstrous 100ish-300ish on a crop sensor body. I found this to be incredibly awkward while shooting an engagement session. Before long I swapped back to my runty little sigma 18-50 2.8 just so I wasn’t shouting direction at the couple from 30 yards away. It’s just too long to be useful (Unless you NEED to be far away, I suppose).

I believe that to get the most out of Nikon’s professional lenses, you really do need to consider a full frame body (unless you’re shooting wildlife, using the even longer pro lenses, in which case I can see a crop body being beneficial to a point).

I’d be interested to know if anyone else shares these sentiments.