After a little more then a year after making the decision I needed to make the move from Nikon to Canon. The reason I've held out so long before actually following through with my decision, was because I wanted to wait as their were many rumors Canon was finally going to announce the successor to the 7D at that big camera convention last month, but that did not happen as planned. Now there are new rumors (of course) that the reason we haven't got a successor to the 7D is because it's taking Canon longer then expect to develop it's new cropped sensor, but is now expect to be announced sometime next year.

 

Needless to say, I'm getting tired of waiting, so I want to build a kit around the T3i body and a high quality, general purpose lens, with the long term goal of eventually replacing the T3i body with the new 7D successor when Canon finally decides to release it. The camera will be used about equally for photos and video. I've narrowed my lens selection down to a couple lenses and was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with any of the lenses or just a general opinion on them would be greatly appreciated.

 

lenses:

• Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
  
• Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
  
• Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF
  

 

-The two Canon lenses are roughly the same price +/- $40 at $700-740 each (the L series lens being the more expensive)

-The Tamron comes in at $500 roughly $200 cheaper then the two Canon Lenses, but has the advantage of a lower F-stop but no IS.

-An advantage of the L series lens would be that it would fit any new Canon camera where as the others are specific to the APS-C sensor but it also has the smallest F-stop at 4.

I have a 2Ti body and a Canon EF-S 18-138 (not positive as to the larger length, because a friend of mine is borrowing it and I can't look and make sure). Plus to boot, it's wide-angle.

 

I absolutely love it, only downside being that I can't really produce/take macro shots spectacularly well (like it works, but no where near as well as a macro lens).

As for the body, I am still a newb at photography and such, and haven't had any other cameras to compare it to (though honestly, the T3i isn't that much different, the friend who borrowed my lens has one and I've used/seen it).

 

One downside is the display screen on the T2i body displays some pictures and they look entirely clean and not blurry, but when you upload to the computer, they sometimes can be extremely blurry. Not a huge problem, but still annoying at times.

Yeah there isn't a whole lot of differences between the t2i and the t3i besides a few minor added functionalities to the t3i, but I haven't found the t2i to very competitively priced which is why I'm leaning towards the t3i.

Make sure you get a 50mm prime, 1.4. You will not regret it.

Make sure you get a 50mm prime, 1.4. You will not regret it.

 

I was planning on it, but probably something wider like 28mm or smaller.

That's a lot of money for a hobby.