To Buy Kit or Body

[Tom Miller]

After searching and deciding what I want 7d vs 60d. I feel the 60d is the route. But since this will be my first dslr I'm not sure if it would be better for me to buy it with a Kit lens or buy just the body and pick out my lens.

My plan is to mainly use it for video in conjunction with my Ax2000 and GoPros. BUT I also want to be able to take nice photos. id like to only have 2 lens at this point so i have some money to put it on a Glide cam

What lens would you recommend

Thanks Tom

[David Chilson]

The 60D is a great camera and if you're not obsessed with vampires, slider moves on candles or in the wedding biz, I can't think of two better lenses to own. I carry these two every day with my T3i and XF100 and the whole kit fits in a lowepro slingshot. With the 3x crop you have 24mm-1440mm of kick butt glass for your 60D. Have fun!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/647013-USA/Canon_3560B002_EF_S_15_85mm_f_3_5_5_6_IS.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/732106-USA/Canon_4426B002_EF_70_300mm_f_4_5_6L_IS.html

[Tom Miller]

How about the Tokina 11-16?

[David Chilson]

I also have that lens and it's very nice also. If your needs are more towards the wider end that lens and the 15-85 would make a good two lens combo too. Give you about 16.5mm - 383mm coverage. I tend to use a lot more telephoto and I was trying to stick to the "two lens criteria".

If you're like the rest of us lenses can become an obsession!

[Tom Miller]

yeah that's what i was thinking. I have the AX2000 and that has plenty of zoom on it. I want to use the 60d as the more creative camera. so ill start with the Glide cam and eventually get more in to sliders and what not

[Tom Miller]

for $279 does it make sense to go with the kit lens and then the 11-16mm or is the kit lens pretty much crap?

[Chris Hsiung]

The 11-16 is well used for me. For tight spaces it's a life saver and they really give a sense of vast spaces. I'm not a fan of the kit lens. The zoom isn't smooth for video and the lack of a constant aperture. But then again, the constant aperture lens are expensive. The 24 - 105 f4 might be a good zoom. L series with stabilization.

[Tom Miller]

Chances are the kit lens would ONLY be used for Photos

[Colin Rowe]

Kit lens is perfectly OK for video in reasonable light, and excellent for photos

[Seth Bloombaum]

In my very limited experience, an early consideration needs to be whether you want to have wide aperatures available to create shallow depth of focus. A fast lens can always be stopped down for deeper focus, but if you want (very) shallow too, the kit lenses are not the best.

For me, I bought a used Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 and am very happy with test shots. Of course fast glass costs serious money, I spent almost as much for it (used) as for the 60d body (new). In my use, a short zoom is most useful. I've owned camcorders with long lenses, and I'm constantly trying to get wider shooting in interiors. I'd feel differently if I did wildlife or hidden camera, but the short zoom is great.

Having said all that, someday I will go for longer glass, and if I want to stay with f2.8 it will be some serious money!

A friend is shooting the Tokina 11-16 on a 7D and he is very happy with it.

[Michael Kraus]

I don't have it myself, but pretty much everyone really loves the 17-55 2.8 and considers it to be "L quality" glass for EF-S cameras.

When I bought my t2i I got it with the 18-135mm. My strategy is basically to whip it out when I need a big zoom range and autofocus and the rest of the time I shoot with fast manual focus primes. It's worked out pretty well so far.

[Jay Corcuera]

Why not choose the t3i ? Sounds like you're mostly going to be using it for video.. The 3x zoom function makes the t3i better for video and It saves you from having to buy tele lenses.. Also since this is your first Dslr I doubt you'll be using the extra control the 60d gives you..

[Tom Miller]

Yeah if I could I would buy the 17-55 2.8 but it just costs to much for me to buy right away. In the future i would buy more lens. I need to put a decent shot gun mic on it i need more sd cards and I hope to have enough to buy a glide cam.


I would actually prefer to buy a 7D but because Im trying to cut costs for other things I like the 60D. Build quality is big i want something that feels solid. I dont like playing the move up game. I started doing that when i bought my first camera i bought a cheap HD Cam and a year later i wound up with a XHA1 and then the Sony AX2000. I also DO plan to use it for photos that's one reason why I'm not buying another video camera. Like said above I dont mind having to buy lens in the future but for now i need to stick to the basics.

[Jordan Hooper]

I've got the 60D and I'm totally happy with it.
When it comes to video there is no difference between 60D and 7D in terms of quality, but the tilt-swivel screen on the 60D is very handy for low or high angles, and if you have it on a table dolly for example.
I wouldn't spend any more than the 60D at the APS-C level. The extra you'd spend on the 7D would be better put towards saving up for a range of lenses, or a 5D in the future. ;)

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Tom Miller

What lens would you recommend

If I was on a budget (I actually am :)) I'd buy Samyang lenzes for video; I have got a 14mm f2.8, a 35mm f1.4 and a 85mm f1.4 and they are dirt cheap compared to Canon lenses, (there's also a 24mm f1.4 available now) ofcourse canon lenzes are of better quality, have stabilizers build in and can autofocus which all are not possible with the Samyangs but in image quality there is not much difference compared to the much more expensive Canons. (That is for video, for photo you do see the difference more.)
Another benefit the Samyangs have (beside their cheap and very fast) is that they have an iris ring on the lens, iris adjustments are not smooth like with a videocamera but at least you can change it very quickly, for finetuning exposure I use a variable nd filter and just select a fstop value depending on how dark it is or how much shallow dof I want.

One thing to take into consideration is that kit lenses are very slow making them useless in darker environments, you need at least a f2.8 lens to make it a all round lens. Another thing to consider is that with slower lenzes it's more difficult to push the background out of focus, especially with wide angles, and depending on the type of background that can result in very ugly moire making your image useless.