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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] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've come to a conclusion that I'm either getting the stock lens (the RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM) or this sigma one (the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary).

But as a beginner, I'd still love to ask you: It's five times the price of the stock lens, but does the quality improve proportionally? Would the pictures generally also be about 5x better, in some way at least?

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

5x better? My initial reaction would be no. The only exception would be if you're going to be doing a lot of low light photography. On the wide side, the Sigma gathers 1.5x more light. On the narrow side, the Sigma gathers 3x more light. That could be the difference between getting or not getting a shot.

The Sigma will give you better subject isolation, better image quality/rendering, and better feel in hand. I suggest googling both lenses and looking at sample image galleries.

Wether or not this is worth the extra cost is your call.