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Any recommendations for the most versatile, highest-quality lens for the R50 (for ~$600)? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Total beginner here, looking to buy my first camera and looking for a lens that would be able to deal with the widest range of situations (a zoom one) all in one package. I've got about 600usd to spend on it and I'm fully aware it's not much, but I want to get a good start.

I can't buy used ones where I live (even from online platforms around the world), so it'd have to be new.

At the moment my goal is to take photos of pretty much everything: nature (apart from moving animals), landscapes, streets, portraits, objects (large and small), architecture, and I also plan to film videos quite a bit. Nothing fast moving and no sports though.

I'd love to shoot in close-up macro, too, but I understand it's not possible within one lens.

What could you recommend?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It also depends a lot on lighting. The third option will be good for outdoors photography on sunny and slightly overcast days and fine on a tripod for static scenes with low light. Taking photos of people and/or moving things in low light will be rough.

Lens selection is all about choosing the tradeoffs that work for you.

If you have a local photography store you might be able to borrow or rent a lens for a few days to get a feel for how you like it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've also been recommended a relatively cheap Sigma lens that is of high image quality but it doesn't have Image Stabilization. Would that be a concern with R50 without IBIS?

And is the 18-150mm lens much better than the basic kit 45 one?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

As a rule of thumb, you don't need to worry about stabilization until your shutter speed is less than 1/full frame focal length. So for example on a 50mm lens, as long as your shutter speed is faster than 1/75 of a second you'll be fine. Stabilization doesn't fix people and/or things moving around (eg trees swaying in the wind), so IMO it's only so useful. To me, stabilization is most useful to me at longer focal lengths, say 200mm+, because it helps keep your framing and focus points consistent. If you're doing longer exposure of static things, and don't want to carry a tripod, stabilization on a wide lens makes sense.

I don't know this specific 18-150, but these types of lenses tend to sacrifice some IQ for a very wide zoom range. Generally speaking, any lens pushing more than 3x zoom is going to be more challenging to design. An 18-150 (8.3x zoom) is positioned as "one lens to walk around with all day in good to decent lightning". You'll need to look at reviews of the two lenses in question though. See my other reply with a list of bullets that impact image quality for things to watch for.