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Digital Photography User Magazine - AVForums
Maybe it's just me but I keep seeing over and over again posts with subjects like:
I've just bought a Canon 350D but now want to replace the kit lens with something a little longer, can you recommend a suitable lens?
Now I don't take issue with the question, which is perfectly reasonable, but I do take issue with the reply that is then invariably posted which goes along the lines of:
Get yourself some L glass, it's the only way to go!
Am I the only one to think that this is one hell of a jump to consider for someone who, by the very fact of buying what is after all an entry level Digital SLR, has probably just bought their first interchangeable lens camera and may actually find it less forgiving than a prosumer lens? I mean what is this obsession with L glass anyway? The way people go on about it anyone would think that it was made of some magical substance that suddenly transformed your pictures into works of art!
Don't get me wrong L glass is good and I'm not saying that only serious and 'good' photographers should be allowed to buy them, just that, in my personal opinion, some people who buy these lenses have bought them because they have been told that all other lenses are significantly inferior. Now I know what you are thinking, "that's rich coming from someone who owns two L lenses". What I would say in answer to this though is that I didn't buy those L lenses because they were L glass, instead I bought them because in the case of my 70-200 f/2.8 L I needed a lens of that reach that was f/2.8 and the Sigma model I didn't like that much. The 17-40 f/4 L is a slightly different story, I wanted a wide angle lens but so many of them suffered from too much barrel distortion and/or well digital only models i.e. you would get vignetting on a full frame digital SLR which as one day I would like to buy such a camera is something I wanted to avoid. At the time the only other lens that I gave serious consideration to was the Sigma 15-30mm but I didn't feel entirely comfortable with it. In truth I have considered selling the 17-40 as although it is a great lens I personally don't think it's as good as a lot of people want to believe it is and by that I mean that I think that there are other lenses out there now that are just as good, perhaps better and certainly a lot cheaper.
What I find so sad about all of this obsession with getting the 'best gear', whatever that means, is that it seems to make people think about the technical aspect of photography long before they think of the creative side. How many times have you seen a photo on a photography site that is of one of those 'once in a lifetime' moments that can't be recreated and it's a stunning shot but then someone nitpicker comes along and says, "it's a shame you didn't choose a slightly faster shutter speed" or "I don't like the way that person's hair is across their face". Come on, get real!
By producing shots that are so technically perfect you can also remove any character or charm in them and sometimes the imperfections actually add to the photo. Take photo journalism for example, everyone can remember iconic photos from this genre like the photo of the 9 year old Vietmanese girl Phan Thi Kim Phuc who was horrifically burnt after a South Vietnamese aircraft accidentally dropped its napalm payload on her village of Trang Bang on June 8th 1972
From a technical point of view is this photo perfect? Apart from the first answer that should pop into your head which is "does it matter?" the answer is no. There is a soldier behind Phan Thi Kim Phuc which although his presence gives context to the photo he appears to be growing out of her head, her older brothers feet in the foreground have been cropped out of frame. This is the kind of crap that some 'perfectionists' will pick up on less emotive subjects. This photo is perfect because it was of the moment and in 1/60th of a second managed to show the Vietnam war for what it was.
If wanna be photographers spent as much time and money on trying to capture images where you the viewer connect immediately with the subject instead of worrying about whether they should spend £1200 on a f/2.8 lens or £400 on one that will only go to f/4 I'm sure they would see the quality of their photographs go through the roof. Furthermore, when was the last time you looked at a photo and thought "ooh nice photo, shame about the lens they used"? I'm guessing never or at least very seldomly which just goes to prove that it's not what gear you use that is important but what you photograph with it.
Just last week I spent the day with an ex press photographer who turned up with a Canon D20 with a kit lens and a severely dented UV filter all of which he just chucked into his pocket without a lens cap and that was him ready. I on the other hand had all my gear with me, 10D, 17-40, 24-70, 70-200, 2x teleconverter, flashgun, tripod, reflector etc yet it was he who consistently captured not only the better shots but shots I hadn't even seen despite standing next to him the whole time. Later that day I asked him why he only had a kit lens with him to which he simply said "It's all I needed". Short and sweet but completely true, the shots he captured on that kit lens costing little more than £100 were every bit as good as the shots I took with my lenses costing ten times as much but were often better in terms of actually seeing the moment and knowing when to press the shutter release. No fancy lens will tell you when to do that and what's the point in owning a £1000 lens if you don't know how or when to use it.
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