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I'm wondering if you can help me to choose between Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM Wide Angle (without IS) and the Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Wide Angle Lens for portraits, landscape and star photography.
I am currently using a Canon T3i.Is the IS more important than maximum aperture?
I'm travelling to Africa and one of these lenses will be with me isA, so I hope it is good for portraits for the people and so.
Any other suggestions are appreciated.
You've really got some competing needs there. Portraits typically call for a normal to short-tele lens -- starting at 50mm or so (full-frame) or 35mm (crop). Landscapes and star photography tend to lean toward wider lenses, and on the crop-sensor T3i, you'd want to be at least as wide as the 28. As a point of reference, Canon's 10-22mm lens is generally considered one of the better options for landscape photography for crop-sensor bodies.
Both the 24 and the 28 offer reasonably wide maximum apertures, though, which can be helpful for astrophotography because you typically want to keep exposures below 20-30 seconds if you're trying to avoid star trails. One possible option to combine a landscape & nighttime lens would be to look at Tokina's 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, which usually ranks right up with Canon's 10-22 for landscape photography, and offers a reasonably fast maximum aperture. Maybe add in Canon's 50mm f/1.8 lens for portraits, and you'd have a fair chance at meeting all those needs.
If you want one lens for those purposes you can't use a prime, but Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM would be a good option. Then you have the wide end for landscapes, and can take portraits with 55mm. Portraits on a crop sensor looks best from 60-90mm, so 55mm gets pretty close. And it is a fixed aperture zoom. While not being quite as open as the 1.8 primes, it does have IS.
It also gets good review: Review
The drawback is if you plan to upgrade to full frame, you have to sell this one with your crop camera, but canon lenses do hold their value on the used market.
If you want settle for 2 lenses, you can choose Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 for walkaround/landscapes/astro and Canon 85mm 1.8mm for amazing portraits.
To get a really nice wide lens for landscape I would suggest the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. You are using a body with a crop sensor, so you need to consider that your actual lens focal length would be mm x 1.6 so at 10mm its the equivalent to 16mm on a full frame sensor, or 35mm camera on film.
I have the 10-22 and find it nice and sharp and has a solid construction.
If you want a more versatile lens I would say consider the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, also a great lens and this will give you a more versitile range if you intend to shoot a few portraits.
One thing to keep in mind with both these examples is they are EF-S lenses, which means if you upgrade your body to an EF type (full-frame) then these lenses are not compatible.
If that worries you Have a look at the 16-35mm f/2.8 L series lens
as suggested a nifty 50 is never a bad addition to your camera bag, the f/1.8 version is cheap as chips and takes brilliant images for the cost
