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Features

Three Lenses Every Beginning Canon DSLR User Needs

Chris Gampat
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10/06/2013
4 Mins read

Chris-Gampat-The-Phoblographer-Sigma-30mm-f1_003

So now you’re a Canon DSLR owner. Congrats; you’ve made a great decision by joining up with one of the most comprehensive and well supported camera systems out there. Not only will get you some truly spectacular image quality, but you’ll also be rewarded with loads of great features to make image taking an even better experience.

But now that you’re a DSLR owner: know that your image quality mostly comes from your lenses. In fact, your lenses can indeed be more important than your camera. And with that in mind, consider these favorites of ours.


Canon 50mm f1.8

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The nifty 50 is the lens that everyone (including us) recommend that you spring for from the start. If you’ve already got one, good. If you don’t, then this is the one you’ll need. First off, it’s dirt cheap and can be had for sometimes under $100. This is partially due to its older construction and plastic body.

So why is it such a great lens. Well to begin with, you’ll get a wide open f1.8 aperture (f-stop.) This will let you achieve images with bokeh–which is that creamy, blurry background that you’ve been dreaming of. When the lens is opened up to f1.8, you can also shoot easily in low light without a flash.

This lens performs at its sharpest at around f4, but you get the best balance of subjects being in focus and bokeh blur at f2.8. To really get the most out of this lens, you’ll want to set your camera to manual mode instead of aperture priority or automatic. The reason for this is because then you’ll be able to experiment with the full range of exposures that a lens like this allows you to have.

Just also remember that if you put this lens on an APS-C sensor DSLR, it will give you the field of view of an 80mm lens. Don’t know what we’re talking about? If you own a Rebel, a 70D (or double digit number with a D) or a 7D, then you’ve got a camera with an APS-C sensor and therefore the camera doesn’t use the full capabilities of the lens.

In the long run though, you’ll probably either sell this lens or stick with it forever.

Check out our review here.

Buy Now: Adorama | Amazon | B&H Photo

Pro Tip: When you're shooting with a lens wide open, you'll get your most accurate performance when you manually select your focusing point. Consult your camera's manual on how to do just that; but with Canon cameras in general it means pressing a button and then the directional buttons on the back of the camera.
Pro Tip: When you’re shooting with a lens wide open, you’ll get your most accurate performance when you manually select your focusing point. Consult your camera’s manual on how to do just that; but with Canon cameras in general it means pressing a button and then the directional buttons on the back of the camera.

Sigma 30mm f1.4 II (New Version)

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If you’re looking for a true 50mm field of view on an APS-C camera, then you’re going to want this lens. Sigma’s 30mm f1.4 is designed to be used with APS-C sensor cameras like a Rebel to give off a near equivalent field of view of a 50mm lens. But what we were pleasantly surprised to find is that the lens also works damned well on a full frame camera.

By that, we mean that there is barely any bothersome vignetting and it also performs very sharply. However, it is sharpest nearest to the center and then it start to taper off near the corner. The reason for this is most likely for the fact that it wasn’t designed to be used with a full frame camera.

Sigma’s 30mm f1.4 also feels quite nice in your hand–almost like a small piece of fruit. The image quality it can deliver is contrasty, sharp, and almost devoid of flaws. If you really, really, want to pixel peep though you’ll find some purple fringing.

But in all honesty, that means nothing when it comes to your photo being viewed as a whole.

Check out our review here.

Buy Now: Adorama | Amazon | B&H Photo

Tokina 12-28mm f4 II

969884You know that longing feeling that you have for shooting landscapes and stuff? Well if you want to do it with a APS-C camera, then Tokina’s 12-28mm f4 lens is an excellent option. The build quality is pretty darned good; but what you’ll be floored by is the sharp image quality corner to corner.

So who specifically is this lens for? If you’re a traveller going from city to city wanting to shoot architecture, street photographers wanting a zoom, or essentially anyone wanting to shoot wide no matter what will want this lens.

As the only zoom on this list, it might also be the lens that you get addicted to due to its versatility and the image quality that we can’t sing praises of enough.

Check out our review here.

Buy Now: Adorama | Amazon | B&H Photo

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30mm f1.4 canon canon 50mm f1.8 dslr lenses nifty 50 sigma tokina tokina 12-28mm f4
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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