Telephoto vs wide angle lens - which one should I get?

[jeanc]

We have the Canon A80 (love it!) and I would like to buy my husband a lens for his birthday. Which is more useful - telephoto or wide angle? Any recommendations? No specific use for the lens; we just enjoy taking pics.

Thanks for helping out a newbie!

PS - what is vignetting?

[pnd1]

Hi, Jean,

The answer to your question is simple. Your A80 already has a telephoto focal length -- going out to 114mm. Granted, it's not a long telephoto, but it at least allows you to frame normal subjects a lot more tightly, particularly portraits. The only reason you would need to buy a telephoto converter lens for this camera would be for shooting sporting events or wildlife, where you simply can't get close enough to the action.

On the other hand, the A80 is deficient at the wideangle end of its zoom. At the widest end, it is only 38mm, which does not give you much of a wideangle view at all.

As such, I would strongly recommend you consider buying Canon's WC-DC52 wideangle converter lens for the A80. It is a .7x lens, and thus will change the 38mm wide end of your zoom to about 27mm, which is an adequate wideangle focal length. (You must also buy Canon's conversion lens LA-DC52D "adapter," which allows you to mate the converter lens to your camera. You can find these items on line or at most larger camera stores.)

For examples of wideangle shooting, I'd suggest you take a look at my instructional galleries at www.pbase.com/pnd1. As you will see, I do a lot of it. It allows me to move in on my subject to stress its detail and scale, yet still retain important surrounding context for meaning. You can't effectively do that with the 38mm end of your zoom.

If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them in detail, either here or via email. Good luck,

Phil

[pnd1]

Hi, again, Jean. I forgot to answer your p.s. regarding vignetting in my previous post.

Vignetting happens when you put a converter lens on over your camera's zoom lens, and your picture looks like it was shot through a porthole.
What is happening is that the camera is taking a picture of the inside of the adapter.

If you follow the instructions that come with your converter lens, and if your converter and adapter are the ones that are specifically intended to be used with the A80, you should not see this problem.

For example, with my Canon G5 conversion lenses, if I try to zoom with my teleconverter in place, I get vignetting. Canon specifically says zooming is a no-no with its teleconverter. However I can cheat and zoom it a little bit without vignetting. However usually I have to use the teleconverter only with my G5 in almost its full telephoto zoom position. Otherwise I'll get vignetting.

Canon also tells me i can only use my wideangle converter when the G5's zoom lens is at its full wideangle position. However, it turns out that I can zoom the G5 lens all I want, and get pictures without any vignetting when using its wideangle converter.

So it really depends upon how each converter lens actually matches up with the camera's zoom. You'll have to try it out in a store to see for sure. But you can, however, be assured of no vignetting if you follow the instructions that come with your converter. It's simply a matter of how much you can deviate from those instructions without getting that "porthole" effect.

Sometimes vignetting can be very mild -- like shadows in the corners. That is no problem -- all you have to do is a bit of cloning or cropping with photoshop to clean up the corners if needed.

If you have further questions, let me know.

Good luck,
Phil

[jeanc]

Hi Phil!

Thank you much for your detailed answers. Your photographs are beautiful, and you have such wonderful stories too! I will defnitely point my husband to your website, and I think I will go with the wide angle lens.

Thanks, again!

Jean

[pnd1]

Thanks for your kind words on my photos. Feel free to leave questions and comments on either my worldisround.com articles, or under the instructional examples I use in my pbase galleries. Be sure that you and your husband use your new wideangle converter with thought and care -- they tend to create clutter, unless you use them to anchor your image with an emphatic subject. You can see examples of how to do this in my galleries. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask them.
Phil