Best Canon (or generic) lens for group portraits--NO distortion?

Question

I've been taking family portraits for around two years now, and have recently been asked to do quite a few extended family shoots. I own the 50mm and 85mm canon lenses for my 50D, however I HATE the quality of my 28-135 kit lens. What would you recommend purchasing ($500 or less) to better accomodate the wide shots? I also don't want to deal with possible distortion. What's the widest you can go before that happens??

Answer 1

Canon's EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 is a significant upgrade for this camera over the stock lens. I used it for a little while on my Rebel before I upgraded my camera body. It's about $500 brand new, or you can find it used on Ebay for a lot cheaper.

Answer 2

The 50mm is about the widest you can go without noticeable barrel distortion. All wideangle lenses have noticeable barrel distortion, but as Photoace stated, it's most prominent at the extreme sides, which you can easily crop out in the post-process. Dial in distortion correction with lens profiles in editing programs such as lightroom and Photoshop before the crop, and you'll have no noticeable distortion whatsoever.



I've used both these lenses; they beat the pants of the 28-135 in Image Quality:



Tokina 16-28mm f2.8

Canon 17-40mm f4.0L

Answer 3

Every lens ever made ever in the universe ever has distortion.