What focal length range do you think ...?

Question

I need good wide angle and good telephoto in that range. For digital SLRs, would the 18-55mm give me what I need?

Answer 1

Wide Angle lenses are 21-35mm

Telephoto lenses are 135mm or more

Your 18-55mm works well as a wide angle lens, but not a telephoto.

Answer 2

It would depend on the model of camera, different models have different sized sensors, and this affects the effective angle of view of the lens on a given camera.

If you are buying a consumer end DSLR then it will have a smaller sensor, this makes the lens more telephoto, so an 18-55mm lens would actually behave more like a 28-90mm lens, which gives you a moderate useable wide angle for landscapes and group shots, with a moderate telephoto ideal for individual or smaller group portraiture.

Neither would be at the extreme end of things, but is a good walkabout lens for everyday use.

If you were buying something like an EOS5D or 1Ds or Nikon D3 then such a lens would give you an extreme wide angle of view with a tele end the same as a normal lens, not that much different from the human perspective.

In either case I would avoid the 18-200 superzooms that are going about, they cover too wide a range to be all that great at anything.  If you can afford it I would also ignore most of the budget 18-55 lenses that come with the lower end bodies, the bodies tend to be very good these days, often let down by the supplied lens.

If you happen to buy into the canon system and buy a higher priced model (the 5d 1Dmk3 1Dsmk3) then make sure you buy EF mount lenses rather than EF-S mount lenses.

Answer 3

The 18mm would be pretty good wide angle, but telephoto usually means hundreds of millimeters.

Answer 4

for a consumer range DSLR, there is a conversion ratio to apply to the flocal length as the sensor is smaller than a 35 mm negative.

so although 28 is considered wide on 35 mm, you really need 18 or less to be considered wide on a DSLR.

18-55 is a good cheap small all around lens that will let you take indoor shots and some outdoors.

for real wide angle you may want to go down to 14 mm or even 9 mm but these are a lot more expensive.

as for the longer end, ther is also a 18-70 and an 18-135.

Although because they are reasonnably cheap yo uwill have to use the outside when it's sunny or you'll have to slow the exposure so much that you'll get blurred image(unless you have a tripod).

you could problably get a older 70-210 at 2.8 that will cover the longer end.

As everywhere you can get good small and cheap but not all three at the same time.

ps: if you can get the 18-55 with stabilizer. it's more expensive but people have reported being able to hand hold a shot for 1 second.

pps: if you don't often need the long end, just take your photo with lots megapixels and crop into it, or get a teleconverter that looses some light but double or x1.4 times the focal distance.