Help! Should I upgrade body or lens? (video camera, Canon EOS, 50mm)

[tyanger]

Background:
-amateur with a perfectionist streak. mostly kids/family/vacation pictures, about 50/50 indoor-outdoor. I like to shoot without flash if possible, however I mess around with a primitive "studio" (a single AlienBee B800 flash/umbrella and a few big reflectors)
-I currently have a Canon EOS 350D/XT, an EF50/1.4 prime, and an EF28-135/3.5-5.6 zoom. My favorite lens is the 50, something about the images - probably the bokeh because I tend to take more photos in the lower range of f-stops. With the crop sensor the 50 is usually too long. So I use the zoom fairly often too, but I don't like the photos as much.
-I'm looking to upgrade, I have about $1200 in my budget, but the perfectionist side of me could stretch that some.

Dilemma:
Should I upgrade the zoom to EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM? or
Should I upgrade the body to 7D and continue using the 50 still cropped?
(Or if I sell my GL2 video camera upgrading to 5D body comes very close to a reasonable option but for the time being would still be limited to the 50 and a mediocre zoom)

I hope this all makes sense, but any input/advice/observations would appreciated.

[ChristineF]

Short answer (and my opinion only) is to upgrade the lens. I just bought a 70-200 F4L (my first 'L' glass) and have been really impressed with the image quality. I'd be jealous if you got the 24-70 F2.8L...... :-)

[kdog]

Lenses are more important than the body, so upgrade those first. The best general purpose zoom for a canon crop-body camera is the EF-S 17-55 IS. The optical quality is as good as a zoom gets, at least as good as the 24-70 and it has IS, which the 24-70 does not. Plus you'd now have a wide angle lens which you are currently missing. 28mm on a crop body is more of a mid-range focal length than a wide angle. You will open up a new world of composition possibilities by going with a true wide angle. The 17-55 is easily good enough for fine portraiture which sounds like your primary focus. (It can't be landscapes, because you don't have a landscape lens now.)

If you plan on keeping the 28-135, I'd even consider getting the EF-S 10-22 for landscapes, wide angle interior shots, and special effects. Then you wouldn't be overlapping your existing focal lengths so much. But it's decidedly not a portrait lens. Of course, you have portraits covered with your 50mm already. So it really depends on where your photographic interests lie.

[Lamplight]

I'd upgrade to a really nice, fairly wide lens. I own the 17-40mm L lens, and it's a darn good one. However, I think my 50mm 1.8 prime beats it in overall image quality. It's just hard to beat prime lenses if you don't mind having to switch lenses occasionally. I'd wait to upgrade the body until you were able to spend more than $1200. Although you can probably find a 7d used on ebay for $1200, if you don't mind getting a used camera. But I'd still think about lenses first.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by tyanger

-I'm looking to upgrade, I have about $1200 in my budget, but the perfectionist side of me could stretch that some.

I'm not specifically familiar enough with Canon gear to suggest which lenses, but I basically agree with what everyone says about going for a better lens first... with some caveats.

As was also mentioned, wait to upgrade the body until you can afford more than $1200; or perhaps look at used bodies. Given your descriptions it sounds as if a full frame body would absolutely be the way to go. Canon has the 5D and the 5DII now, with a 5DIII no doubt coming at some point down the road. I would definitely suggest saving up for one of those in the next year or so.

And with that said, make sure that any lenses you acquire are able to work with a full frame body as opposed just the cropped bodies. That may make them a little more expensive, but it will be easily worth the difference in the long run.

And a little added perspective on lenses vs a new camera body... If your current zoom isn't producing up to the standard you'd like to achieve, make sure that it really is the lens (which is very likely). It's just a lot harder to use DOF for isolation with a smaller sensor camera than it is with a larger sensor. Don't just base the need for a lens by DOF alone, or even bokeh. Judge mostly by sharpness (which actually will be better on a cropped sensor) and give a little but careful consideration to bokeh, but ignore DOF. (If your current zoom is sharp enough, has questionable bokeh, but you just can't isolate the subject from an out of focus background you need a new body first rather than a different lens.)

Whatever, don't go for more than one lens before upgrading the body. That also means that you want to be very careful to make sure the lens you do get is actually of significant benefit over what you now have.

[kdog]

^^ Floyd, while I don't dispute what you're saying, keep in mind you're recommending a $2400 camera body to a person with a $1200 budget. And of course they still need superlative lenses to go with that body, so really one needs a budget of around $5,000 to $6,000 to assemble a reasonable full-frame kit. For all that, they get a little better high ISO performance and shallower depth of field. One can still achieve excellent subject isolation with a crop body camera as long as you have more physical depth in your environment to work with. Here's an example. This was shot against a red-rocks background with a crop body camera. There was plenty of room in front and in back of the subjects, and I think you'll agree the isolation is just fine.



Here's the EXIF from that shot.

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
Image Date: 2011-05-18 18:03:47 (no TZ)
Focal Length: 155mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0025 s (1/400)
ISO equiv: 100
Exposure Bias: +0.33 EV
Metering Mode: Center Weight
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No (enforced)

My suggestion of the EF-S 17-55 F2.8 lens gets you a fast constant aperture zoom that will give the best subject separation you can get without needing to upgrade to a FF body or resorting to a basket of fast primes, and in the stated budget. The downside of this lens is that it's not compatible with FF bodies. So one has to take a realistic look at their budget and plot out their upgrade path. Also consider that lenses hold their value extremely well, so one uses this lens for a couple of years and decides to upgrade, you will lose little or even nothing when you sell or trade it in. Yes, nothing. I have lenses that have actually appreciated over time. My Canon EF-S 10-22 is one such lens.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by kdog

^^ Floyd, while I don't dispute what you're saying, keep in mind you're recommending a $2400 camera body to a person with a $1200 budget.

No! Read it more carefully. I actually recommended looking at a range of cameras that start at less than $1000 for a used Canon 5D.

And of course they still need superlative lenses to go with that body, so really one needs a budget of around $5,000 to $6,000 to assemble a reasonable full-frame kit.

No more or less necessary than the same budget to get good glass for a 7D.

Having the best lenses available is no more necessary for a FF body than for a crop body. Older versions, even perhaps old MF lenses, and Canon's f/4 versions vs their f/2.8 versions are all reasonable choices on a budget. Certainly that gives up one form or another of functionality, but with careful research and effort it can produce lenses that accomplish whatever is most important and it can also provide an education about exactly what is important so that later on funds can be more narrowly targeted at more well defined needs.

Regardless, I really like that picture... but your discussion of it proves my point. If you always have the right circumstances to use a crop camera you can make do; but when things aren't perfect then a more appropriate camera will do better, I'm always assuming I'll need the more appropriate camera simply because every new camera I've ever bought has provided me with images the one I had before could not do.

[tyanger]

Thanks everyone. I pretty much already knew I should do the lens, but I've wanted a 5D for so long I'm just in denial. (It also feels weird putting a $1K+ lens on a $250 body - a $400 lens on a $2300 body seems better to me somehow, but I can't decide which is worse/better.)

So, if I can't get a 5D right now, the next thing on my wish list is an L lens. Is the EF-S 17-55 F2.8 really almost as good as/better than the L? It's so close price wise, but if IS really "gives another" 2-3 f stops like I've read - that would be important to me. (However, some day I must get a ff body - just because I have to.)

[kdog]

Optically, the 17-55 is definitely L quality. I think every review you'll find on it will confirm that. The build isn't quite L quality, but still pretty close. Of course, it's priced like an L too. But the functionality really hits the sweet spot on the crop bodies. Even when I'm shooting my 5DMKII with a portrait lens on it, I usually carry my 7D with the 17-55 for any wider shots. My original plan when I went to full-frame was sell-off my EFS lenses. However, honestly I'm having trouble parting with them. They're that good. Plus you'll notice I'm hanging on to my crop-body as well. There are just certain things that a crop body does better, so I get the best of both worlds by owning both. In fact, most all the serious photographers I know have both crop and FF bodies.