The Right Lens

At various times I have owned lenses that I have used and later found that they were unsuitable. In chronological order the lenses that found most use on my camera have been:

50mm f/1.7

28-105 f/3.5-4.5

24-70 f/2.8

24-105 f/4

28mm f/2.8

50mm f/1.4

Except for the last two, I have sold the rest on that wonderful site called craigslist.

The first conclusion one can draw is that there is no "right" lens.

The second conclusion is that I am still not sure about what I want to create with my camera and lenses.

The third conclusion is that different lenses support different styles of photography. I now find that with my 50mm lens I can shoot people and indoors very well. I seem to be doing a lot of it. The portraits look very nice, low light is not a problem and the lens is small and light and my aging wrists allow me to work for much longer periods. When I am outdoors, I just wrap the neck strap around my wrist, and hold the camera in my hands. This way, I have the camera ready to shoot all the time.

My current lens lineup consists of the 28/2.8, 50/1.4 and 105/2.8 Macro. Other than the very wide angle field of view (on the Canon 20D) these lenses cover almost all my needs. Most of my pictures undergo at least some cropping. So as long as the technical quality (sharpness, exposure) is correct, these lenses allow a wide range of shooting at a relatively low weight barrier and produce very high quality pictures.