Oh if only i could ever afford a 5d, i think i'd kill small animals for one.

Very true. I've seen people at races with 1D's and a few 20D's as spares Huge range of L glass lenses. But then I recieve feedback from people who say that they prefer the shots i take to the ones taken by this person. So there we go its not all the kit. I'm still shooting with the Kit 18-55 lense. If I stop it down to F/8 or so it still gives a reasonibe picture. Admitidly I am saving for some Sigma Lenses now as i really dont have the money to afford canon.

The reason many 'pro' photogaphers have 20Ds is because for telephoto lenses, the crop factor works to your advantage! More zooooom.

Furthermore, you may have tried a lens and thought it to be crap, but were you using it correctly? My 17-40 L only gives a wow factor once you decrease the aperture. As zakalwe said, more or less, its the photographer that makes the picture, not the camera/lens

Totally. My Sigma 70-200 2.8 is rather soft wide open, was shooting it for an hour this morning at 200mm, f/4, for portraits. Background bokeh was incredible, and the subject was super sharp.

Well you seem to have to in this day an age, sad really, but i guess it holds some comedic value too

well... here are some shots with the Zenitar rectilinear fish eye on my 20D... its maybe not quite what you are looking for (no circular image) but it gives nice distorsion and a nice wide angle view...




I have more photos but havent uploaded them.

Having tried the lens out on a film camera I wish I had a ff dslr! the fish eye effect is waaay better, however if used to maximise the effect the lens does still give enough distorsion that it can be look cool but not make you sick of it after 2 shots like a full on fish eye. Oh and it costs

hmm something peculiar is going on.... I'll try again...

Ha, I'm going to through my tuppence worht in here.

I am not in the knowledge about the fisheyes in question, but I do know a bit about canon and sigma lenses.

1. I have a sigma 17-35mm lens, it takes much better photos than my canon, but my canon was a "came with a 300pound body" lens, which explains that quite easily as the sigma was more than the 300pound body.

2. I used a Canon 35-135 IS f3.5-4.5 (or thereabouts) for about a year until I had to give it back to its very patient owner... I liked it, but its image quality was no better or no worse than the Sigma. I even did an experiment with them at either end of the aperture scale and could see only the slightest difference, not enough to be a problem.

3. I think perhaps if you go to the expense of Canon L glass, then you can probably see a difference, but in my view you'll only see that difference when you enlarge your photo to max on the screen - when do you ever print out a fullsize 100 x 60cm print? If you were a pro of course, perhaps you would, but if you were a pro, you'd have L glass Up to that point, Canon and Sigma are on a par I'd say.

4. Its not just sharpness that seems to be affected by different lenses. In comparing my Sigma with my cheap Canon, the colours seem a lot more vibrant from the sigma. I assume this is because they used higher quality glass.

5. The idea that the crop factor works to your advantage is, in my view, a little misguided. It means that if you want to take a photo of say a bird, that you can fill the frame more easily, which could be good if the bird's reasonbly close, but it does not magnify the bird any more. So if I'm in a hide 100 metres away from the subject bird, even though I can fill the frame more easily, if I still can't see the bird because my focal length isn't magnifying it enough in the first place, I'm still scuppered. I must get round to buying a nice long lens!


damn pound signs!!