In February 2005 I made a major upgrade to the lenses that I used. Prior to this I used to use: Canon 70-300 IS f/4-5.6 USM Sigma 50-500 f/4-6.3 EX APO Tamron 90mm f/2.8

Canon 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 USM

The Canon 70-300 IS is a nice lens and, for the money, an excellent choice but it does lack a bit in sharpness even with the IS turned off. I had only had the Sigma 50-500 for a few months and although the flexibility of this lens is great I found it too slow to auto focus in a number of situations.

I therefore decided to sell those lens and in their place bought:
Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L USM
Canon 17-40 f/4 L USM
Canon 2x EFII Teleconverter
Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG Macro

These lenses are without doubt the best lenses I have ever used and thanks to the Canon 2x Teleconverter I have practically the same focal range across my lenses as before with the advantage of being at least 1 stop faster. Some people say that the 2x Teleconverter reduces the quality of your photos, whilst It's true to say that images using this are not quite as sharp and lack some of the punch that they would otherwise have I would still say that my Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L with the Canon 2x Teleconverter produces shots that are perfectly sharp and easily still saleable and it still out performs my old Sigma 50-500.

The Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L is a stunning lens, it is razor sharp, very fast with f/2.8 as it's maximum aperture and has lovely colour saturation which really make the photos jump of the screen and page and without a doubt is allowing me to capture images that would not have been possible with my old lenses. My only regret was that I could not afford the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS L as the Image Stabilisation would useful at times. However the way that I get around this is by simply carrying a lightweight monopod with me which effectively does much the same job.

The Canon 17-40 F/4 L is another lovely lens and also the most affordable lens in the Canon L series range and suffers from virtually no barrel distortion even at 17mm which is pretty impressive. Like the 70-200 it also have very good colour saturation and is very fast at auto focusing but can occasionally hunt for focus in dull light where there is low contrast but this is the exception to the rule. This lens is not only ideal for landscape photography but is also very useful for large group shots at weddings and events and it really came into it's own earlier this year when I had to photograph a wedding with over 150 guests. The fact that it's 'only' f/4 is for me not really a problem as I also have the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 so if I really need the extra 1 stop of light I'm only going to loose out on 7mm of focal length.

The Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG Macro is another fine lens, fast and very sharp. I had thought about buying the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L and although I will concede that the build quality of the Canon is superior and the handling is a little better the difference in image quality didn't justify the price difference. The Sigma 24-70 has now become my main 'every day lens' and is one I am very happy with.