What the hell?! Or, how I ended up with four lenses

Since Becky's wedding in March, I've been unable to stop thinking about lenses.  I constantly wondered what new glass might do for me and what the best possible purchase would be.  In my madder moments, I actually toyed with the idea of getting a whopper of a pro lens that would easily cost more than half a month's salary.

Today, it all came to a head.  I had lunch with one of my besties, Mel, and her friend, N.  When she and N decided to drive to Peninsula Plaza to look at guitars, I took it as a sign.  

I'm not a particularly savvy buyer, especially because I know diddly-squat about cameras.  But I go by gut feel.  If it's in my budget, if it feels like it'll suit my needs, and most importantly, if I feel like the salesperson is really listening and recommending something that is in my best interests, I'll bite.  Maybe that's foolish, but it's worked well for me so far.

(Woe betide the salesman at one Harvey Norman a long time ago who tried to sell me a smaller, slimmer camera than the G11 that I wanted because "it comes in pink and will fit nicely in a handbag, so girls prefer this".  I stalked out, fuming.) 

I went into The Camera Workshop, met with a very patient man named Daniel and that's how I ended up with four lenses.

I was initally looking at a 28 - 75mm Tamron lens whose real selling factor for me was it's constant 2.8 aperture.  Given that I already have my 18 - 55 kit lens and my darling 50mm 1.8 prime, Daniel thought about it and said that while the Tamron was a good lens, it wasn't giving me very much more range and I was losing a lot on the wide-angled end.  I groused about my lighting issues - I've confirmed that it really was the kit lens aperture that was giving me problems because the lighting on my prime is sweet - and he suggested two intuitive upgrades to my kit.

In the picture above, you see the two lenses I already own on the right.  On my camera, is my new 35mm, f2 prime lens and at the bottom of the picture, fully stretched out, is an awesome new 55 - 250mm zoom lens, both by Canon.

Here's what each one of them does:

1)  My kit lens is pretty much your standard everyday knockabout lens.  It came with the camera and takes relatively pleasing photos.  It wasn't delivering enough zoom in concerts or at the weddings I've attended so far, and it's just a little low on light.  It's a great workhorse though, light and convenient.

2)  The 50mm/1.8 takes awesome portraits with beautiful lighting.  It's not one for capturing scenery and you definitely need a lot of space to take full body shots of people, but I can quite happily tote it around for days on end.  The colours and bokeh are amazing and once I realised that it had to be stopped down to 2.8 to avoid weird soft-focus issues, I fell head-over-heels in love.  It's made of plastic, which explains the awesome price, but I'm not fussy at all.

3)   The 35mm with a constant f2 fills the gap between the first two lenses.  It's a portrait-ish lens with a lot more room and just as much light.  I now need far less space to get pictures of my friends and this seems like it could also work very well as an everyday lens for the random, mundane things I usually shoot.  It's a good quality lens made of metal and makes a gnarly, zipping autofocus sound.  The best part is that like my 50mm, it's snub-nosed and fits beautifully and unobtrusively into a handbag.

4)  The 55 - 250, finally, relieves all my zoom-related frustration.  Now at a concert, I'll no longer feel like I have to crop every picture to a ridiculous extent.  If I choose to take pictures of a friend's wedding, I can stand at the back of the aisle and still grab smaller details quite easily.  And it weighs less than 400 grams and is very reasonably priced because it sometimes comes with kits.  I took a picture of Mel in the shop and the quality was perfect for my needs.  This is the lens that will come with me to the zoo!

 
It's not that big compared to my kit lens and it's not a whit fatter, so I'm well pleased.  (The camera shop guy threw in a new lens cap for my kit lens!  Thank heavens for parallel imports!)

The best part about the outing was that Daniel listened to what I wanted very patiently and asked about what I was hoping to get out of my full kit.  Apart from recommending the lenses to complete the range of length I wanted, he also talked to me about upping the ISO and balancing the other stats in such a way that I was pushing the equipment as far as possible, as well as dealing with grain in photos.  Even though these are considered to be low grade Canon lenses, he told me how I could use them well, for example, in shooting a wedding couple coming down the aisle, and why I don't need anything more expensive.  That is what I really want my photos to be about - making the most of the things that I have.

So, the price of today's outing?  Two lenses, two filters, a free lens cap, screen protector for Big's screen and some really great advice: $700. 

I'll take it.