My sister Linda and her SO were in town back near the beginning of summer. They were passing through Windsor en route from London to San Francisco. We went out for dinner and talked about traveling. They were going to see the motorcycle Grand Prix in Monterey, California. A week later Candace and I would be flying out for Candace to attend Blogher and me to soak up some of those silicon valley vibes.

As we sat and talked one of the things that came up was the awesome lens Chris was bringing with them. He had the same Digital Rebel XT that I do but he wanted to shoot some high speed bikes, so he was carrying some pretty hefty glass. I think it was the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM but I'm not positive.

I guess I told my sister about the differences between an SLR and a point & shoot. I do remember going on about how much better Candace's shots were than mine. Now, Candace has a better eye than I do and her photos show it. But the specific case I was talking about to Linda was that my first digital point & shoot was a Sony DSC-P72 (which has since died on me). Candace did more research and her first point & shoot was a Canon PowerShot A75. The difference in the pictures between the two made me doubt my ability as a photographer. The cameras were similar by the numbers (as in megapixels & optical zoom) but we could shoot the same subject and hers invariably just looked better. I've heard that Canons tend to have deeper (perhaps too deep) colour saturation than other cameras, but it was more than that. I couldn't process my photos to get the same clarity that she did right out of the shot. It was the glass. I believe that Canon has better lenses than Sony. It shouldn't be surprising as Canon puts a lot more in to their camera business than Sony does. Now that Sony's bought the remains of Konica Minolta maybe things could change but I really don't care. I've been burned by Sony too many times (besides the camera) and don't have any interest in giving them another shot.

When I decided to get an SLR camera, I followed Candace's advice and went with the Canon Digital Rebel XT and I've been rewarded with vibrant, clear photos and a camera that I feel like still has a lot more potential to help me improve my skill.

So Linda sent me an email the other day saying she noticed the difference I was talking about between her photos and Chris' pictures. Since she wanted to know what other lenses and filters would be worthwhile for vacationing with, I decided I'd do a little looking around and share what I find with anyone who's interested.

If you want to be prepared for most situations, you need to have a few lenses: one general-purpose, one for distance and one for wide shots. I'm almost there.

Standard Zoom Lenses

The all-purpose in my bag would be the 18-55 zoom lens. This is the one that comes in a kit with the Digital Rebel XT so most amateur photographers end up with this one. If you don't have it, I'd recommend looking at other options around the same range just so you make an informed buy. It takes nice pictures, but just a little more zoom or a little faster shutter would be nice sometimes. From the Canon's standard zoom lenses, I'd consider the EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II. It has a little more zoom but won't be able to focus as close as the 18-55. The EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM

Telephoto - Photos of Far Away Subjects
I got a deal on a used telephoto zoom lens at Windsor Photo Outfitters. You have to be careful getting a used lens, it's still a significant amount of money and there's a real risk of having a scratch somewhere on either end of it. I lucked out and saved over a hundred bucks on a 75-300mm lens - specifically the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III - that I've had no problems with. It's great for getting surfers 300 meters off the shore. The only one I can tell is a lot better in the same category would be the image stablizing EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. The IS lenses are supposed to be a really noticeable improvement over those without the feature but it is expensive. I can't say firsthand as I don't own any yet, but it sounds like it could mean carrying fewer lenses and not switching as often simply because one IS lens can be used in more applications than the equivalent standard lenses. Note that the 100 in the 100-400 is the shortest focal length. That implies a pretty big minimum distance between you and your subject. I know with my 75-300mm lens the subject has to be at least five or 10 feet away. I used it for these dogs at Ojibway Park and I felt kind of silly backing up so far. My fireworks shots, on the other hand, made more sense to shoot with the 75-300mm lens.

A Wide Angle Lens for Panoramic Shots
The next lens I'd like to get, to round out my kit, is a wide angle. I don't know exactly which one yet and price makes a big difference of course, but I know a few things. The shutter doesn't have to be very fast since the subject should be a coastline, a sunset, buildings or trees. I'd use a wide angle lens for things that aren't moving quickly so I know I can deal with a slower shutter. Vacation panoramas also lend themselves to sitting still. Maybe resting the camera on a beach chair, a hotel balcony railing or a friend's shoulder.

A wide angle will have a short focal length, like 20mm or 30mm but if you go too short you may have to be careful of fishbowl distortion when composing normal shots. This happens because the wide angle lens is basically more convex than others. So something reasonable might be the fixed focal-length EF 28mm f/2.8 or EF 35mm f/1.4L USM.

I'm a little rusty on this stuff since I've been too busy to play amateur photographer lately, but hopefully this can at least serve as some input when it's time to decide which lens goes in the suitcase and which stays home.