EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II Telephoto Zoom

JMASTERJ · August 18, 2012

I'm sure some of you know my ongoing saga with trying to do intimate indoor med/low light portraits/body shots in a small room.... I just finally got a great deal on the Ti3, + the default 18-55 + Tiffen 58mm UV Protection Filter + EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II for $570. It was a package deal so my question is, should I keep and use the 55-250 for my project and more, or should I flip it and try to get something else more useful to me? I heard it is bad for sports and is a bit soft on the 250 end (which kinda sucks for a zoom lens I guess) and soft on the edges on all lengths, but right now all I care about are my portraits so...

If I should flip it, what else within a $100 price range of the 55-250 should I get that will do me a lot better? If I can I would love to keep a zoom lens to make life easier, but if you really think there is a fixed lens out there that will do a whole lot better for the price for my purpose, please advice... but please keep in mind my MAX shoot distance is about 7-8 ft. Thanks!

pathfinder · August 18, 2012

For a crop body camera, for head shot portraits I would use a 50mm or an 85mm prime.

In a small room ( what exactly are the dimensions? ) for full body shots I would suggest a 28-35mm prime.

I doubt your 55-250 will be much use to you - too long, too slow, and too soft.

The 18-55 EF-S IS F2.8 is a great lens, and has all the focal lengths you will need at 6-8 feet.

JMASTERJ · August 19, 2012

pathfinder wrote: »

For a crop body camera, for head shot portraits I would use a 50mm or an 85mm prime.

In a small room ( what exactly are the dimensions? ) for full body shots I would suggest a 28-35mm prime.

I doubt your 55-250 will be much use to you - too long, too slow, and too soft.

The 18-55 EF-S F2.8 is a great lens, and has all the focal lengths you will need at 6-8 feet.

Room is 12'x12' but I can only really use like 10'x10'.

Unfortunately the one that comes with is a EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Type II, which I assume is better than the 55-250, so I'll probably sell the zoom and just use that. Not sure if you had seen my other threads on the project, but basically I need these for "decent" web product shots for intimate wear with the body as part of the image. This will not be used for print or any hi-res work yet, and I am a graphic designer so any post work I can do, altho we all want to minimize that always.

I just need something that will be significantly better than my Lumix P&S, with upgrade potential as we get more income in from the business. As long as the end result looks something like the ones on victoriasecret.com (without the pretty pink gradiated bg's), I'll be fine and go from there.

divamum · August 19, 2012

The 55-250 is a pretty decent lens for the money, but you'll struggle with it in a room that small. I'd sell it and get a 50 1.8 for the project you've outlined; the 18-55 will certainly work as well, but the fast aperture on the 50 1.8 will not only mean you can shoot in less light, but also give you more creative options with depth of field. For under $100 used, it's a no-brainer for anybody shooting portraits on a crop camera with a tight budget.

JMASTERJ · August 19, 2012

divamum wrote: »

The 55-250 is a pretty decent lens for the money, but you'll struggle with it in a room that small. I'd sell it and get a 50 1.8 for the project you've outlined; the 18-55 will certainly work as well, but the fast aperture on the 50 1.8 will not only mean you can shoot in less light, but also give you more creative options with depth of field. For under $100 used, it's a no-brainer for anybody shooting portraits on a crop camera with a tight budget.

I was just afraid in the small room with max shot distance of maybe 7-8 ft that even the 50/1.8 wont be able to get in the whole body, meaning like about 4-5 feet wide, max. Is there like a formula for max width from a certain distance you can get in the frame for a certain lens?

angevin1 · August 20, 2012

JMASTERJ wrote: »

I was just afraid in the small room with max shot distance of maybe 7-8 ft that even the 50/1.8 wont be able to get in the whole body, meaning like about 4-5 feet wide, max. Is there like a formula for max width from a certain distance you can get in the frame for a certain lens?

Here is a Calculator for FOV. But otherwise Pathfinder answered your question above. Stick with that 18-55 lens and you'll be golden~

pathfinder · August 20, 2012

Here is a Calculator for FOV

Your link for the FOV calculator is interesting.

I guess my approach is to make a guess at what I will need for a given FOV, put that focal length lends on my camera body and see if I can see everything, or I move forward or backward until I can see everything through my viewfinder.....

Or if I cannot zoom with my feet, I will try a longer or shorter lens as needed by my view through my viewfinder...

I tend to approach Depth of Field the same way, by looking through the lens with the preview button pushed, rather than looking at a DOF calculator.

Call me a dinosaur.

angevin1 · August 20, 2012

pathfinder wrote: »

Here is a Calculator for FOV

Call me a dinosaur.

Dinosaur!:giggle

I gave him the link simply because....Because you really answered his question. What else was there? Hard to argue with a correct answer.

For me, I pretty much know what lens I'll need for a given shoot. And tend to make do with a whole lot less lenses than many folks doing what I do. And same with DOF. I actually have used DOF Master. My mostly-mounted 40mm MF lens just gives me so much latitude @ f/8, all I need do is keep the near focus back about 6ft. or more and "I'm golden". I have rented a lens or two and same with them, used MF only, DOF master and went to work.

But yeah, I think I get you. Making guesses comes with experience. Ain't it grand?!

JMASTERJ · August 21, 2012

angevin1 wrote: »

Here is a Calculator for FOV. But otherwise Pathfinder answered your question above. Stick with that 18-55 lens and you'll be golden~

pathfinder wrote: »

I guess my approach is to make a guess at what I will need for a given FOV, put that focal length lends on my camera body and see if I can see everything, or I move forward or backward until I can see everything through my viewfinder.....

angevin1 wrote: »

Dinosaur!:giggle
For me, I pretty much know what lens I'll need for a given shoot. And tend to make do with a whole lot less lenses than many folks doing what I do. And same with DOF. I actually have used DOF Master. My mostly-mounted 40mm MF lens just gives me so much latitude @ f/8, all I need do is keep the near focus back about 6ft. or more and "I'm golden". I have rented a lens or two and same with them, used MF only, DOF master and went to work.

But yeah, I think I get you. Making guesses comes with experience. Ain't it grand?!

Awesome calculator, I love numbers so that will help me understand and "visualize" the dimensions much better... the reason I even ask for that is unfortunately I just dont have a lot of time for trial and error, which means I need to have as MUCH info as possible before i start buying and setting things up... I am just ecstatic right now bec I got all this info and I got the T3i coming and only paid like $400 flat for it with the default 18-55 lens! Sale at the perfect time!

JMASTERJ · August 23, 2012

One quickie before i finalize:
Good sale: $400
Canon EF-S 18mm-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Auto Focus Lens - Refurbished (Adorama) - Assuming refurbs are ok for these lens
Will this be much better than the 55-250 I just got for my indoor small room portraits? I.e, should I resell that and get this?

angevin1 · August 24, 2012

JMASTERJ wrote: »

One quickie before i finalize:
Good sale: $400
Canon EF-S 18mm-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Auto Focus Lens - Refurbished (Adorama) - Assuming refurbs are ok for these lens
Will this be much better than the 55-250 I just got for my indoor small room portraits? I.e, should I resell that and get this?

I don't know these two lenses well enough to tell you. But I can say that if you're getting this one or the other for your small room portraits, I can think of better lenses for similar money.

Such as the 85 f/1.8: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/12182-USA/Canon_2519A003_85mm_f_1_8_USM_Autofocus.html

True. You will not have zoom. But you will have a better optic.

JMASTERJ · August 25, 2012

angevin1 wrote: »

I don't know these two lenses well enough to tell you. But I can say that if you're getting this one or the other for your small room portraits, I can think of better lenses for similar money.

Such as the 85 f/1.8: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/12182-USA/Canon_2519A003_85mm_f_1_8_USM_Autofocus.html

True. You will not have zoom. But you will have a better optic.

I heard of that lens as being great as well, but I thought my room was too small to use that?

angevin1 · August 25, 2012

JMASTERJ wrote: »

I heard of that lens as being great as well, but I thought my room was too small to use that?

Well, it is if you're thinkin full body shot. And so is the 55-200 that you mentioned potentially. So I just figured you must be thinking about when you might do a close up and if so, the 85mm would be a better optic than the other two.

Truth is, your space is entirely too small to do what you are talkin about. But, and it's a big but, breaking the rules happens all the time in the fashion world: Shoot too close, shoot up the nose, Shoot next to the BG, focus on aspects that are distorted and on and on.

Truth be known you ought to have about 4ft. minimum from your subj-to-BG and another 8ft. before we get to the camera. And those are minimums.

JMASTERJ · August 29, 2012

angevin1 wrote: »

Well, it is if you're thinkin full body shot. And so is the 55-200 that you mentioned potentially. So I just figured you must be thinking about when you might do a close up and if so, the 85mm would be a better optic than the other two.

Truth is, your space is entirely too small to do what you are talkin about. But, and it's a big but, breaking the rules happens all the time in the fashion world: Shoot too close, shoot up the nose, Shoot next to the BG, focus on aspects that are distorted and on and on.

Truth be known you ought to have about 4ft. minimum from your subj-to-BG and another 8ft. before we get to the camera. And those are minimums.

The 18-55 seems to fit the area fine so even though that is not the best lens for my job, I'll just start with it before I start spending another $300+ for more glass. My bigger problems noware how to set up the awfully big paper backdrop, 108" wide, I cant believe I got that instead of just going with some cloth sheets... this is going to be a major pain to set up... I mean, I barely have space to fit the roll in there, do I have to basically make a whole PVC housing just to have it up?

Also I was just fooling around with the T3i quickly, and with both lenses, the focusing process has been horrible. In regular room light, the focusing sometimes takes 3-4-5 seconds to get it right, and thats not even every time. Its zip-zip-zipzip-zip---zip-zipzip.... I know my old Minolta film camera did this sometimes, but this is ridiculous. Could I be alrady doing something terribly wrong?? Very disconcerting. I've tried 5 different light conditions (all indoors though) in auto settings, different color backgrounds, etc....

angevin1 · August 30, 2012

JMASTERJ wrote: »

The 18-55 seems to fit the area fine so even though that is not the best lens for my job, I'll just start with it before I start spending another $300+ for more glass. My bigger problems noware how to set up the awfully big paper backdrop, 108" wide, I cant believe I got that instead of just going with some cloth sheets... this is going to be a major pain to set up... I mean, I barely have space to fit the roll in there, do I have to basically make a whole PVC housing just to have it up?

No. You could just slice off some of it and then pin it to the wall, or lay the roll on the floor, and pull it up as high as needed then pin it.

JMASTERJ wrote: »

Also I was just fooling around with the T3i quickly, and with both lenses, the focusing process has been horrible. In regular room light, the focusing sometimes takes 3-4-5 seconds to get it right, and thats not even every time. Its zip-zip-zipzip-zip---zip-zipzip.... I know my old Minolta film camera did this sometimes, but this is ridiculous. Could I be alrady doing something terribly wrong?? Very disconcerting. I've tried 5 different light conditions (all indoors though) in auto settings, different color backgrounds, etc....

I'd suggest starting a new thread in 'Cameras' and ask this question there.

JMASTERJ · August 31, 2012

angevin1 wrote: »

No. You could just slice off some of it and then pin it to the wall, or lay the roll on the floor, and pull it up as high as needed then pin it.

Ok I guess I was afraid of "wasting that piece" bec afterwards, it'll be a chore to rol it back up neatly enough with no creasing... anyways....

EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II Telephoto Zoom

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