If you own a newer Canon SLR, you have several choices of lens brands that you can buy for your camera. In addition to buying Canon brand lenses that work with the automatic focus of modern Canon's, you can buy lenses from third party vendors such as Sigma and Tamron, who make Canon-compatible lenses for less cost than Canon. After having spent a large amount of money on the camera body, you may be asking yourself if it is worth spending the extra bucks for the brand name lens as well. I am an amateur photographer, so am certainly no expert, but from the day that I bought my Canon SLR with its brand name lenses you could see a marked jump in improvement in my photo albums. It is like someone focused everything and turned on the lights! I recently switched to a digital Canon and gave my six-year-old film Canon to my mother. Her photos showed the same amazing improvement.

Reasons to Buy the Canon Lens

I generally like to stick to matching brand names with brand names, and my research has shown that most people on the web agree that doing so with Canon lenses is worth it. The first reason for the popularity of this Canon lens is image quality. Canon lenses are well-corrected for distortion, and have excellent color fidelity and contrast. In addition, they are characterized by superior lens construction. Canon lenses are the choice of many imaging professionals the world over, whether those lenses are being used on EOS SLR cameras or on broadcast cameras.

Canon Lens Critics

As with any product, Canon lenses have their critics. For example, I found one person who felt that on the Canon lens the auto focus seemed slower than and not as decisive as the other lenses they had owned, especially in low light.

Canon Lens Facts and Benefits

Lenses are extremely complex and sensitive pieces of equipment in which a myriad of problems can occur. Canon lenses are adjusted through the camera body with no on-lens control. All modern Canon lenses focus with a motor in the lens, which may be one of the main reasons my mother and I got such great photos. If you are near-sighted, this is an especially nice feature since it is difficult to focus manually if you wear glasses.

Used Canon Lenses

Another great reason to invest in the higher priced Canon brand lens is that camera lenses tend to hold their monetary value over time, while camera bodies do not. I have bought both a used Canon lens and a new Canon lens for work and home and, frankly, I could not tell any difference other than the price.