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Lenses and the Canon 7D Mark II

All right, let's, talk about some of the lenses thatyou will mount on the camera. We have the siri's and the e f s siri's and the cannon seventy mark two can use both so it can use both of these type of lenses can't use every lens that cannon makes, and I will explain that in just a moment, the e f lenses are very clearly labeled e f and then the number of focal length of the lens. They also have a red dot where you mount them on the camera. The f s lenses are also clearly labeled. They also have a white square very different. This camera uses both, and they're slightly different alignment positions for these lenses, and here is the difference. The e f lenses are designed and built for their full frame sensors. Thie f s ones are designed for their smaller frame sensors, so any f lens produces a very large image circle big enough to encompass the entire full frame sensor area. The e f s lenses have a smaller image circle that they create designed for the smaller sensor on these cameras.

Where things get interesting is where you start switching lenses in sensors, so if we take an e f s lens designed for the smaller frame sensor and we use it on a full frame camera. We're going to get a small image inside of that square we're going to end up with the netting and darkening of corners and that's if we could actually mounted on the camera cannon builds their lenses so that you cannot mount e f s lenses on a full friend cameras so if you're wondering why a lens works on this camera but not a five the mark three or other full frame camera that's the reason if you'd taken e f lens and you do mounted on this camera what it does is it produces an image that is larger than it needs to be and your camera is utilizing the middle portion of that scene it doesn't really hurt anything but it is just a little bit different uh then what you're getting with the full frame camera so that is perfectly acceptable in fact I expect a lot of people who use this camera to use e f lenses because for the most part most all telephoto lenses from canada are e f lenses and so that's perfectly acceptable I have on ly one lens that is specifically designed for the smaller sensor on this camera everything else is going to be an e f in my stable of lenses as faras the lenses go there's a lot of different letters on a lot of different names nomenclature so let's go through it some of the basics are e f stands for electronic focus f s is that small frame sensor that these air for and so these will not mount they will not work on the full frame canon cameras and it's not likely you're going to see many of these there are certainly not many to choose from out there but there is something called e f m lenses these air designed for cannons mira list system there's only a few of them out on the market but they have the e f em and they have a white dot as opposed to the white square or red dot l is their luxury line of lenses it's their top of the line lenses generally the best that they have in each of their different categories many of their lenses have image stabilization a lot of their lenses air now in their second generation of that focal length in that aperture and so it's just means it's more current lens and pretty much all their lenses thes days not all but most are ultrasonic motor lenses and this is a very fast and quiet focusing motor it's a preferable focusing for still photography they've introduced a new system called the tm focusing motor and this is a stepper motor and this while not as fast as the ultrasonic motor is smoother in focusing which works very well for people shooting video and so if you wanted to shoot a lot of video and auto focusing while you're shooting video is very important to you then you would want to look at the very few s t m lenses that are available in the market now the s team lenses typically are many of the lower in lenses right now from cannon so there's a lot of basic zooms that have that s t m option on it there's only perhaps about a half dozen that have that and as I say it's not quite as fast as the u s him for still photography but it's better for video and so they're just kind of tweaking things tto make lenses good for a variety of different reasons so let's take a look at some of the lenses that we can choose from now one of the ways that this camera is purchase is within eighteen to one thirty five lens you'll see the f s index box over on the edge it has a stabilizer like a lot of lenses do as I say, all the autofocus lenses will have an autofocus manual focus switch on the side of the lands we have a zoom arraign on this lens focus ring out in front for those who want to manually focus every lens will have its own unique size of filter threats there's a lot of very common sizes so there's really only about five or six common sizes that you're going to come across this one is sixty seven of their lenses will vary from this there's some little indentations on the out turn external edge of the frame and this is for mounting a hood and the hood for this lands is an e w seventy three b and somebody asked me, what's the best hood to use and the best hood is the one that is designed for that lands each lands has one hood that is designed to give you the optimum amount of blocking of light without interfering with the image. And so whatever is the designed hood for that lands is the best hood for that lens, so this is just one of the many options. This is a pretty good general purpose option because it gives you a little bit of white angle in a fair bit of telephoto and could be the one lens that many people are perfectly satisfied with. Some people want a little more range. There is an eighteen to two hundred a bit of a compromise when it comes to sharpness, and so you'd have to see if it fits. You're standards. I know some people, it fits perfectly well and other people, you know, not quite good enough for what they want to dio another of my favorite general purpose zoom lenses is the fifteen, eighty five I like this because it has broken that eighteen millimeter barrier and got down to something wider angle. Within eighteen to one thirty five eighteen to two hundred, I think a lot of people are still going to be wanting a little bit more wide angle, and I think the fifteen if you get that it's probably going to satisfy the white, the white angle thirst that most people have eighteen is a very, very moderate wide angle and fifteen, although it's only three millimetres difference is probably enough to satisfy that thirst, as I say, if you are interested in a normal lens for this camera but you want it faster, meaning letting in more light to point eight aperture cannon has one choice. It's the seventeen to fifty five two point eight it is what I would consider almost, and l lens so it's almost their luxury line of lens, and it it almost could be, but it doesn't work on their full frame cameras, so this is definitely a good first choice if you want a faster linds, but there are some interesting other options, tamara and makes one that I'm quite satisfied with that is a seventeen to fifty two point eight so very much the same range and it's going to sell for about forty to fifty percent less money, so if you're looking for a little better value, I would look real strongly at the tamron. Sigma came out with the lens that just really had a lot of people scratching their heads like how did they do this? This is an eighteen to thirty five, which is not as big a rage, but it isn't f one point eight lands, so it is more than a stop faster than the other two lenses, and there is nothing competing against this when it comes to a fast lands. And so if you're willing to compromise a little bit of your telephoto, you're going to get much, much faster. Lance, this would be a very nice basic travel lands a great street photography land's good for a number of different reasons, very fast and aperture, very unusual in that regard. The kit lenses are usually eighteen millimeter lenses, and they're never wide enough for a good wide angle work. So cannon has a couple of different wide angles. The one that I think is most appropriate for this camera is the ten to twenty two it's, a moderately fast aperture. Not that you need fast apertures in most white angle purpose is, but this will do a pretty good job. Unfortunately, it's the only really good choice that cannon has, they have a new ten to eighteen, but it's a little bit lower and lens, and I think this is the better quality ones tamara probably makes the the best least least expensive one out there, it's a ten to twenty four lands. This is going to sell somewhere around five hundred dollars, whereas the cannon is probably over eight hundred dollars in price. Probably my overall favorite wide angle choice for this camera is the takina eleven to twenty two point eight. It's got a little bit faster aperture of two point eight and it's consistent throughout the range so you can shoot it. Two point eight whether you're at eleven or twenty and it's a very well built in nice and sharp lens, so that would be my top choice. If you do want to get as wide as you can possibly get, the eight to sixteen is going to be the widest angle lands. There is a little bit of penalty to pay when it comes to the light gathering ability, so you can either take your choice of most wide angle fastest lands, least expensive. So something there for everybody, I think, when it comes to the telephoto lenses, were not going to be looking at f s lenses. For the most part, it's going to be the standard f lenses that are designed for the full frame cameras, the seventy two, three hundred. Is a tried and true staple it's been around for a while and it's a good solid lands and I imagine a fair number of people with seventies would end up getting this probably their first time around when it comes to telephoto lenses, those who want to get a little bit more out of their cameras and lenses they're gonna be looking at the lead. It says you can start off with seventy two, two hundred four, which is a favorite of mine for a travel photography landscape photography f four is usually more than enough for those types of purposes. It's relatively small, lightweight not too much money going to be in the thirteen hundred dollars range depends on if they have any rebates going right now they make a seventy two, three hundred. Here we lose thie f four aperture and it's slides a little bit between four and five point six but is not much bigger in size. And so if you don't mind a little extra weight and a slower aperture, you can get more range. And if you really want to get a lot of telephoto, this is probably their biggest handheld telephoto that most people would be comfortable hand holding for a long period of time. So if you were going to do bird photography and you wanted to have something that you could be very mobile with the one hundred four hundred is probably cannons best option at this time for something like that. They do have many other tele photos that you can use, but this is one that you could mount it on the camera, put the camera around your neck on the shoulder strap and walk around all day with it, and for most people it would be too much there's a lot of lenses that cannon has that are much bigger and better than this, but they end up going into vastly different price ranges and double to triple the weight, so those are some of my favorite telephoto options. All right, so this lit last grouping of lenses is just the best bang for the buck. These air some lenses that don't get advertised a lot, they don't get a lot of promotion. They don't have a lot of facebook fans. These are great little lenses that are not terribly expensive, so the fifty millimeter one point for it's been around for ages and it's not the best lens in the world, but it's a good, inexpensive way to get a nice portrait lens on this camera it's more than good enough quality for most people, the little forty millimeter lands is actually very sharp and incredibly small, lightweight and it's only about two hundred bucks, and so if you just need a relatively normal lands this is a very short telephoto on this camera. It'll keep your camera extremely lightweight the older one hundred macro lens still available through many places. If you are interested in getting macro photography, this would be a great way to get into it it's about two thirds of the price of their other macro lenses, which tend to be bigger in size for the most part. But it's a very good lands live on that for many years been very, very happy with this performance. If you wanted to do portrait photography, usually my first recommendation would be the fifty one four if you're gonna be doing outdoor portrait photography I like eighty five one eight it's a little bit longer focal length it's a one point eight fast aperture it's going to really allow you to blur those backgrounds out if you like that shallow depth of field look does an excellent job kind of an oddball that I can't believe it's still out it's the seventy two, two hundred and this is not the one that I mentioned earlier. This is the non image stabilized model they still make this and it is their least expensive l lands and so if you want some good l glass, this is one of the least expensive ways to get it it's going to come in and around seven hundred dollars or so now I really do like image stabilization on the lands and you have to ask whether it's worth close to six hundred dollars for it in the other version of it and that's something that you will have to address because I do like image stabilization on a lens like that, but if you just want to get into a basic telephoto zoom range, this doesn't excellent job at it at a very good deal in the price now with any of the lenses that are faster and aperture like theeighty five one eight and to some extent the seventy two, two hundred four indefinitely the fifty one four one of the things you're gonna want to take a look at is the micro adjustment option. I will be going through this in detail towards the end of the menu section, but this is where you could tweak your camera to make sure that it is focusing exactly in the area that it is supposed to not in front of, not behind it. If your photos are consistently out of focus, either they're front focused or back focused, meaning the focus did it land in the right spot, then this is something that you're going to want to take a look at and make an adjustment on well, we might as well talk about the lenses as well we talked about them being the top in line of lenses from canon and the holy trinity, as they're sometimes known, his thie three zooms that r f two point eight, an aperture ranging from sixteen to thirty five up to seventy two, two hundred. These are the standard choice of the prose. Yes, they're awesome. Wonderful great lenses let in a lot of light, very well built, and whether sealed as well, which would match up with the weather ceiling on the camera very well. They also have a really nice looking lineup of f four zoom lenses, very similar in style. These air typically going to be quite a bit less money, sometimes smaller in size, and I find them to be very good choices for landscape and travel photography. But for doing sports photography, that two point eight aperture is really nice to have, because it allows you that extra stop in the shutter speed, which you are always needing when it comes to sports photography.