Camera Lens Advice...

[NickConwall]

Hiya Everyone,

I hope all's going well for you all...wish the streams were in a little better shape that's for sure. We have this underground seep spring at our cabin in Little Valley, Ny right at the base of this massive birch tree that has, as far back as I can remember, always had at least 4+ feet of water in it; I went down there this past Saturday and all there was was about 6" of stagnate slime water... end times are near my friends.

Anywho the reason I am writing is I am looking to expand upon my camera lens collection, so far I have the generic zoom lens that came with my Cannon T5i (18-55mm), and 2 other zoom lenses; The better one of the bunch is a Cannon 20-200mm ES which takes great pics from standard distance to maybe 1-200yrds out and the other is a Phoenix 100-500mm which is good for long distances in so long as you have it bolted down to a tripod and the tube taped so it doesn't slide back & forth.

I was wondering what you all use as your go-to lens setup when you go out for the day fishing & shooting pics... I would like to get one that can take good close up. quick & clean of a fish & occasional the occasional bugs but also able to zoom in on a critter or unique landscape feature off in the not too far distance (say around 100yds). I was thinking of maybe a decent macro lens for the close ups but I dunno how good they would be if I saw bigfoot walking down the stream 75yds away. The others i was thinking about & hear great things for are the prime lenses such as the "nifty-50 or maybe a bigger one with a little more zoom like a 70 or 85mm. Also there is the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Standard Zoom Lens. In addition to lens selection what do you as far as settings so im not constantly trying to get the fish in clear focus rather than the background as well as a nice clear shot of said fish rather than a blurry image if it decides to twitch a little at the last moment...
Any thoughts/advice? I would greatly appreciate any you have to give.

Thanks for your time & consideration with this,

Nick Conwall

[johnbenish]

I have used the Tamron 18-200 macro, has been pretty good, now they've added more on the telephoto end, but I have found somewhat slow focusing in lower light situations, that may just be a Nikon thing, really is best handled sort of pre focus and in manual mode. My lens was not waterproof, enough said there. They have also added vibration resistance.
It is a fairly heavy lens as are most of the zooms.
I use a Nikon body, my knowledge of Canon lenses is minimal. My go to lens is the 60 mm macro lens pro quality but obviously not telephoto. I'm sure you can pick up the equivalent lens for Canon for a very reasonable price used, I got mine on eBay for around $200. I don't think that much can go wrong with that lens, not as many moving parts as a zoom.
If you want another choice, there are very close focusing lenses in the 35 mm range, very light to carry, and very reasonably priced used. I picked up a pc ( perspective control) 35 for very little money, manual focus only, but a lot of fun since parallax and line distortion for height are correctable. Gets pretty close for macro, and you can correct for a lot of macro problems with the lens instead of moving the subject or the camera.
I have a 105 macro I use in my work, certainly one of the sharpest lenses I've used, very rugged but heavy. Not too great for the less than full frame sensors, since that works out to 70 mm I think. Is kind of flattering ( pun) for people even my terriers, with big noses.
Lots more possibilities, I even take out a 10 mm fisheye sometimes, Nick has posted an awesome image of a speycaster with one, truly an impressive one. Haven't gotten it together with macro tubes yet, could be interesting.
There are a lot of things to try

[Joe Janiak]

Hi Nick,

I normally carry a 100mm 2.8 macro, a 50mm 1.4, and a 24mm 2.8. I also have a canon 10-22mm that i like a lot but have replaced in my bag with the much smaller much lighter 24mm. I have gone through phases, generally speaking when i buy a new lens I use it almost exclusively for a few months until I am familiar with it. The 24mm and the 100mm macro are really all I use currently and out of those two it is about 95% 24mm. Check out the canon 2.8 24mm pancake lens, extremely small, light and affordable, works great in low light handheld, covers landscape and almost all fish shots- just have to move closer to the subject and get in tight for the fish shots. I love the 100mm but it is very heavy and bulky, mainly i use it for macro but have made some cool non macro images with it as well. The one thing that I lack is a good telephoto for wildlife and whatnot.
I hope that helps Nick, let me know if you have any more questions and I'd be glad to answer them if I can.
cheers,
Joe

[ksteblein]

I always go fishing with a 50mm 1.4, a 20mm 4, and a 135mm 2.8. Rarely use the 135 unless the fishing sucks and I'm going to shoot something else.... Mostly hang on the 20mm for everything.... The 50 is small, and for any kind of low light non-still, this is the go to.

[NickConwall]

thanks guys for the advice, I think I'm going to go with the pancake 24mm & the 50mm 1.8... I found a great deal on a refurnished 50 so that's a check in the win column. I like the 100mm macro, been actually looking at it for awhile but between the price & not knowing much about it I never thought Id get much use from it but after watching a bunch of you-tube's & Joe's advice I think I'm going to put a few extra $'s into my rainy day account so maybe Ill have it by peak color season this fall.

Thanks again guys, good luck on the water!