Canon is one of the most trusted names in photography, and countless enthusiasts, family photographers, and pros reach for its cameras to capture the natural world. The company’s SLRs can swap lenses, so you can change the angle of view to snap shots of wide landscapes or distant subjects, pick a prime to blur backgrounds for portraits, or go dramatic with a fish-eye lens.
Emerging shutterbugs can benefit from upgrading the basic starter zoom bundled with a Canon Rebel, and pros may be mulling a new 70-200mm F2.8 or a wide aperture prime. Regardless of your skill level or expertise, we’re here to help you find the right lens for your SLR.
Which Canon Camera Do You Own?
Canon sells a few different types of interchangeable lens cameras, so you want to make sure you’re buying the right lens for the model you own. The lenses included in this guide are made for Canon’s EOS SLR family. These cameras take EF series lenses from Canon, as well as compatible options from third parties like Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina.
If you have an EOS Rebel or EOS 90D, you’ll be able to use two types of lenses, those made for cameras just for APS-C sensors, designated EF-S, and full-frame EF lenses. If you’ve jumped in with a 6D Mark II or use a pro 5D or recent 1D model, only EF lenses are compatible.
To confuse things a bit more, Canon doesn’t use the Rebel branding outside of North America. In Japan the series is called Kiss, and in Europe Canon uses model numbers with a three- or four-digit designation—the EOS 1500D and 800D are two examples. For the rest of this article, we’re going to be referring to these as APS-C SLRs, just to simplify things.
Don’t Get EF-M and RF Mirrorless Lenses for an SLR
Canon also makes mirrorless cameras. Its EOS M models use APS-C image sensors and support EF-M lenses, while its EOS R series is full-frame and works with RF lenses. Both EOS M and EOS R systems can use EF SLR lenses via the appropriate adapter, but you cannot use EF-M and RF lenses with an SLR; they simply don’t fit.
If you own one of these cameras and want to use an SLR lens, make sure you get the right adapter. For EOS M you’ll reach to the EF-EOS M, while EOS R owners should get the EF-EOS R adapter.
It should be noted that, while lenses aren’t entirely cross-compatible, many accessories are. If you have a modern Canon Speedlite flash, you can use it with any of the company’s current systems, assuming your camera has a hot shoe (and almost all do).
What to Look for in a Canon EF SLR Lens
Now that you know what type of camera you have, the next step is to figure out what kind of lens you want. If you bought a consumer model, you probably started with a very basic zoom, which just screams for an upgrade.
If you have an APS-C camera, you’ll have to think about lenses in a slightly different way than full-frame users. Because of the smaller sensor size, the 18mm wide-angle end of most kitted zooms isn’t nearly as wide as an 18mm full-frame lens. Instead, it’s closer to a 28mm—close to the angle of view of most main smartphone cameras. With any system, a lower focal length nets a wider angle of view.
You can put a full-frame lens on an APS-C camera and simply enjoy a tighter angle of view than you would when paired with a larger sensor. But the other way doesn’t work: Canon EF-S lenses cannot mount to full-frame EF SLRs.
There are reasons to use full-frame lenses on smaller sensors, especially if you enjoy photographing distant subjects. You’ll get a little bit of extra reach due to the denser pixel designs of most APS-C sensors, which is a plus if you’re interested in getting close-up shots of far-off subjects.
Aside from the focal length, you’ll want to look at the f-stop. The lower the number, the more light the lens can capture. A lens can always be set dimmer—if you have an f/2.8 zoom, you can set it to shoot at f/4 or f/5.6 to get more depth of field in a shot, for example, but you can’t open up an f/4 zoom to f/2.8, it just doesn’t work that way.
Image stabilization (IS) is another thing to shop for. Canon doesn’t include in-body image stabilization (IBIS) in any of its SLRs, so it’s important to get the feature in a lens. Most zoom, telephoto, and macro lenses include the feature.
Not every lens is stabilized—for some, like ultra-wide zooms and very bright prime lenses, it’s simply not practical or absolutely necessary. But if you’re debating between a lens with IS and one without, the one with IS is typically a better choice, especially if you plan on using it for handheld video capture.
Finally, pay attention and make sure the lens you’re buying has autofocus—assuming you want it (and most shoppers will). Pros will know when to use autofocus lenses and when to manual focus. The latter is popular for video productions where there’s a dedicated camera operator to pull focus, as well as for some ultra-wide and macro lens designs.
There are many ways to go when buying a lens, so we’ve broken them down by category. Read on for our top picks and to see what your choices are for every type of lens for your Canon SLR.
