What canon EF lens to buy?

[AndrewRrrrrr]

After some recommendations please.....

I've just bought a astro-modded Canon 60D body. I don't have any lenses for it.

Most of the camera's time will be on the back of a telescope but I might want to use it for very wide field or even "normal" daytime photography!

I don't have a huge budget (up to £150 ish ) and happy to buy second hand.  I think it needs to be an EF mount as I have a quad-band clip-in filter and EF-S lens protude backwards into the camera body and will hit the filter.

What lens would you buy?

thanks in advance 🙂

 

[Franklin]

A Nifty-Fifty is a good lens and easy on the budget, Canon EF-S 50mm F1.8, about £50 on the used market. For wider field the Canon EF-S 24mm F2.8 is another budget friendly prime lens suitable for astro. Both benefit from being stopped down a couple of F numbers. I don't think there's any others that would fit the budget but other more experienced folk are sure to chime in.

edit. just re-read your note regards the EF-S fitting😁.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Franklin

[Elp]

The best astro lens bar none is the Samyang 135mm F2. Stretch your budget, you might be able to get the videography T version cheaper than the photo one, same lens, often much cheaper as everyone goes for the photo one.

For super wide the 14mm Samyang F2.8 is also good, hard to use in an urban environment due to the large curved glass which catches stray light sources.

Note, most lenses aren't good for astro, the two above are the rare exception as they also have ED glass as part of their construction. Avoid aspherical only glass. Primes are usually best.

For more budget the Asahi Pentax Takumars M42 are good but can't be as good as modern glass but you'll be surprised how well the 50 year old lenses perform, the 135 F2.5 and 200mm F4 are decent. You'll need to perform some post processing on the star halos as they tend to focus red or green light to a point only (you see the green when you adjust the infinity stop position so can focus past infinity, they're best in focus when the red halos disappear and the green just starts to show).

[Albir phil]

I know it more than your budget but the Samyang 135 f2 is a game changer.You would not be disappointed,but it is around 300 more than you have to spend at the moment. This game is a money sponge 🧽 

[AndrewRrrrrr]

thanks guys, i might be able to stretch to a samyang 14mm which looks pretty good, looks like I could pick one up for 180 ish. 300 too much for the 135 as I'm saving up for other more expensive stuff!!! yes the sponge is getting rinsed haha

a nifty fifty does look good but think it turns into an nifty eighty on an aps-c sensor. 

[Seelive]

23 minutes ago, AndrewRrrrrr said:

a nifty fifty does look good but think it turns into an nifty eighty on an aps-c sensor. 

Not sure how wide field you want to go but the Canon nifty fifty nicely frames the whole of Orion on an APS-C sensor for example.