I bought the 350D again (16 July 05) after 3 months of reconsideration since my two previous failed attempts (that story can be found here) to own the camera. Last time, I bought the EFS 17-85mm and EF 50mm F1.8 MKII (samples can be found here) but I did not buy them again this time round. I went for the Sigma 18-200mm (for more range) and Canon EF-S 60mm F2.8 Macro for its macro and double as a portrait lens (instead of getting the 85mm F1.8 which is too long as I do not own a palace for indoor group portraits!). My initial feelings towards the 18-200mm is: ‘Wow, what a range in such a small package’ and for the 60mm: ‘Almost a microscope when you get to 1:1 life-size image macro but minimal focus distance is quite short so it is not great for flying insets’. Having taken some test shots with these two lenses, I think they are both keepers!
I did not have high expectations for the Sigma 18-200mm after reading a lot of bad feedback from people in dpreview forums. But to my surprise, I seem to have bought a good copy which focuses spot on at all ranges even at 200mm and images are sharp wide open! I may not be experienced enough to ‘see’ any problem so far. I may find out otherwise when I get more experienced with image quality but I hope not!
I like the 60mm and I think the money is well spent for it to be both macro and portrait lens in one. I have been considering between the 60mm and the 85mm F1.8 for a long time until I decided to give the 60mm a try since I like macro photography. I did try out the 85mm in the shop and I wasn’t too impress with the sharpness wide open. Another problem is the focal distance being too long for the 85mm (i.e 136mm!!). I felt that the 60mm is a tad too long let alone the 85mm for portraits of more than 2-3 people. To get sharp images, one has to stop down the 85mm and it defeats the idea of getting an F1.8 lens and has to stop down to F2 or F2.8. The 60mm is VERY sharp even at F2.8!! One thing I would complain about the 60mm is the focus speed. It is much slower than the 85mm despite that they both have USM. I think this is a drawback for most macro lenses. I can cope with it and it is not a big problem for me. It is still much faster and more accurate than my S1!
I am learning to shoot RAW and use RawShooter Essentials 2005 for conversion. So far I think this is great and I can now understand why people go though the all the hassle and effort of converting RAW files. The flexibility is enormous and the final output TIFF/JPEG is much better than JPEGs straight from the camera. I am immediately hooked on using RAW and therefore all the images below were converted from RAW, no further adjustment (except indicated with PP/post-processed) other than resizing for the web. All shots below were taken handheld and no flash was used. All images with FOV at 60mm belong to the EF-S 60mm Macro lens. Due to lack of webspace, I cannot post the originals but please contact me if you need the original files to be sent to you.
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