Canon lenses for 5d vs 40d?

[jhonmartinvish]

I am fairly new to photography as a hobby and have been researching like crazy, but there is so much to learn! Currently I have a Canon 40d and I am considering purchasing a 5d, but have read that not all 40d lenses will work with a 5d? How do you know which lenses will work with each camera?

And while I'm posting I'd like advice on the best lens to use for farm animal/barns/field photography. I'm sure there are many, many choices, but just wondering if there are a few to narrow down my search!

Thanks!

[ReeRay]

The 40d is an APS-C cropped sensor (1.6x) and uses EF-S lenses. These will not fit on a full frame 5D although the 5D lenses will fit the 40D. So, if all your lenses are EF-S you'll need to start again with the Canon EF lens range.

For the subject range you mention pretty much any focal length will suffice but probably a short zoom i.e. 24-70mm would be best. There's also the 24-105mm to consider.

Hope this helps.

[Jockos]

For farm animals you will need the 24-70/2.8L and the 70-200/2.8L. For barns and fields you will need the TS-E 24 and the TS-E 90. With these four lenses, most of your needs will be covered.For super telephoto, the 800/5.6L is also a good lens for the 5D!

Also consider the 85/1.2L II, if you'd like to take some portraits!

[Mcary]

Canon makes two types of lenses for DSLRs EF and EF-S
EF lenses work on all Canon DSLR bodies.
EF-S lenses only work on APS-C DSLR bodies.

[StaaleS]

Like everyone says, EF lenses will work, EF-S lenses will not. In fact, EF-S lenses will not physically mount on the 5D, there is a gasket thingy that prevents them from fitting; this is done because they protrude into the mirror box and the mirror may actually hit the rear end of the lens when it swings up to take the picture.

Third-party crop-camera lenses will mount fine but their image circle will be too small to cover the sensor. This means that Sigma "DC", Tamron "Di II" and Tokina "DX" lenses are a no-go for the 5D. Sigma "DG" and Tamron "Di" will work just fine, they are full-format lenses.

As for lenses for your needs, a normal zoom in the 24-70ish range should do fine for most of it. Tamron makes a rather nice 28-75 f/2.8 that does not cost very much, Canon L glass is the benchmark of course but their four-digit price tags may be too rich for your blood. The Canon 50mm f/1.8 is nice for the price, for available-light photography on the cheap it cannot be touched, even if the build quality is ... well, non-existent. On the other hand it costs all of a hundred bucks.

[kuzano]

It is a fact, known in Midwest and Western farms that animals are quite particular about the lenses they are shot with.

You definitely don't want to use any lens that will piss off a cow, or worse yet a big Bull in a field where it's a toss up which one of you will make it to the fence first.

I was out in such a field, treed by a raging bull, when my mother called me from our uncle's farm house for dinner. (we were visiting on vacation). I jumped down out of the tree, and by the time I got to the fence, I was going so fast I broke three strands of barb wire. Ran straight through all three, chest, groin and shins.

23 stitches and a huge tetanus shot later, I was ok.

Another argument against full frame camera's. They really slow you down when a big bull is right on your tail.

I sold the full frame and switched to an Olympus PEN M43. You can run like the wind with those. However, if I had had the PEN at the time, and been going as fast as the PEN would allow, I probably would have sliced myself in thirds. Could have rode to the hospital in 3 ambulances.

The bull must have seen the fence before I did and he stopped. He turned around and wandered away. I'm thinking, he must have been thinking..."any scrawny little farmer who can run through three strands of perfectly good barb wire... I ain't messing with!!!"

I was, by the way, using a DX lens on a FF camera... my trusty 5D (with a chip out of the mirror to clear the lens).

I also affirm, be careful about the lenses you shoot animals with... farm OR wildlife.

I could tell you a story about visiting an enclosed wild life preserve near Roseburg Oregon, but it would take me too much time to make one up. I'm behind right now on packing and shipping a vintage guitar I sold on eBay. Well now, there's another interesting story.

Please, choose only proper lenses for your conversion to Full Frame. DX and FF usually have an image circle issue, and DX lenses usually vignette (corner shadows) on FF camera bodies. That's the case even if there are no physical impediments like the mirror hitting the lens. Now there's a stupid mistake in that Canon allows the lenses to mount to the body, but then physically impact the mirror.... Wassup there.

But I have never credited Canon with great intellect on their camera design and manufacture. At least they are better than Nikon by a skoooshe or two!

[lynnb]

Do you mean shooting barns, or shooting inside barns? If you are shooting handheld inside barns a faster lens will allow you to use a higher shutter speed to avoid camera shake. Slower lenses with IS (Image Stabilisation) will also work. Most SLR lenses now have IS. If you're regularly taking pictures in low light or just want to get maximum sharpness then a sturdy tripod and head will help to avoid camera shake. Of course you can always brace the camera against something solid.

Canon has an excellent book describing their lenses and their uses: EF Lens Work III, The Eyes of EOS. Worth a read.

Bob Atkins has a beginners guide to Canon lenses here. SLRGear has lens reviews here, including those made for Canon mount by other manufacturers. Some non-Canon lenses are very good indeed, e.g. Zeiss, and some cheaper brands still have very respectable image quality, and might meet your needs if you're on a budget.

Most lenses perform best when used at about 2-3 stops down from their maximum aperture, but that does vary from lens to lens. If you're mainly shooting in good light and don't need the shallower depth of field provided by wide apertures, you may not need a faster lens.

I mostly use the EF 24-105/4L IS when shooting at friends' farms. It's designed as a good all-round lens for people who don't need to shoot at wide apertures. 24mm is wide enough for most purposes, although I sometimes wouldn't have minded a 21mm inside a shearing shed. However for static subjects you can always stitch photos together in Photoshop - that's where a tripod with a panning head is useful. 105mm is enough magnification for my needs. I find it an excellent all-round lens for landscape and rural work. Its only drawback is the relatively slow f4 maximum aperture. If you shoot in low light without a tripod or need subject isolation using dof, the f2.8 zooms mentioned in earlier posts might suit you better.

The fewer lenses you carry around the easier life is, and the more you focus on taking pictures rather than deciding which lens to use. Having both crop and full frame sensor bodies has advantages - if you need more reach, a 24-105 on your 40D becomes effectively a 38-168mm lens because the smaller sensor crops the image circle.

Cheers,

[lynnb]

kuzano, you made my day :-)

[jwicaksana]

Excellent ideas posted above. I use Canon 50D and 5D myself, for crop body, I recommend Tamron 17-50 non VC and 70-200 f/4L IS (maybe IS is not important for you if you shoot outdoors in the field). Both has 67mm filter ring so CPL and other filters can be used together.
On a 5D though, you owe it to yourself to try Leica R lenses, my Cron-R 50mm is welded to my 5D and I really love it.