Lens selections for Canon Rebel xsi

[eprice]

I'm in the market to buy my daughter a Canon xsi body and a couple of digital lenses. She has suggested a 60 macro and a wide angle. Would appreciate suggestions on what lenses to buy. Assume that I will stick with Canon brand but want to focus on quality digital lenses that will serve her well for many years to come. Suggestions?

[purexc00]

How much do you want to spend? And what will she be using them for? The best lenses are L glass but they can cost a pretty penny. Amazon seems to have some of the best prices. I am always on the look for a new lens :)

[eprice]

Not sure what the $$ range is. My daughter is about to graduate from college and is interested in photography as a hobby but with aspirations of using it as a tool to generate income as well. Her photography teachers have advised her toward putting top dollar into fixed lenght lenses that will last, and economizing on the body as its technology is changing rapidly and she is more likely to want to change bodies in the future than good lenses. That's how she picked the xsi. This will be a graduation present and recognition for outstanding achievement so I would really like to buy good quality lenses that will be useful for a long time. I notice a wide range of prices when I do interet searches of the xsi and Canon lenses. I'm wondering if I can really trust some of the sites with really low prices and if its important to be able to walk in to a store to return a camera or lens that has some kind of a problem?

[JustAnEngineer]

The $490 EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=155&modelid=7400) is an excellent macro lens for photographing stuff up close. It can also be used as an outstanding short telephoto lens for less-close subjects (up to infinity focus). It may be a better choice than the $400 EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=155&modelid=11156) for photographing insects, because the longer focal length increases the working distance between the lens and bug. If your daughter eventually upgrades to a full-frame camera (e.g.: 5D Mark II), the EF lens will work with it, but the EF-S lenses only work with Canon cameras with the smaller APS-C size sensor (Rebel series and EOS x0D series).

If you don't get the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=149&modelid=15704) kit lens with the body for an extra $75 over the price of the body alone, consider the $395 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di-II (http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/1750_diII_a016.asp) lens as a higher-quality alternative lens with the same extremely useful zoom range of wide to normal focal lengths.

The $1180 EF 35mm f/1.4L USM (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=151&modelid=7304) prime lens might be an example of one of those top-dollar fixed length lenses that your daughter's instructor recommended. With a 1.6x crop factor on the Rebel XSi, it has the same field of view that a 56mm lens would have on a full-frame or film SLR camera. This is near the classic 50mm focal length that was standard on so many film SLRs. The $240 EF 35mm f/2 (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=151&modelid=7299) is a much cheaper prime lens of the same focal length.

The $1700 EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=151&modelid=17623) wide angle prime lens is quite expensive.


B&H Photo Video (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/) and Adorama (http://www.adorama.com/) are two excellent on-line (and brick and mortar) camera stores.


Here are some lens reviews:
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/