Digital Photography : Lenses
Almost all my lenses (minus the one I used to take the picture). Photo taken in July 2005 with my Digital Rebel and Sigma 50-500mm lens.In a time span of one and a half years, I went from owning just one lens to owning four lenses and an extender.
When I bought my Digital Rebel, it came in a kit with the EFS 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens. While it offered a fairly wide angle coverage, it quickly proved to not be quite up to my expectations in speed and sharpness, so in February 2004 I got an EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. This is a fairly sharp lens, and its larger f/1.8 aperture allowed me to take better available-light pictures, but of course being stuck at only one zoom setting, it's not overly flexible.
In May 2004 I bought the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens. The f/2.8 aperture, superior image quality, fast and quiet zooming mechanism, as well as the zoom range versatility meant that the 24-70 quickly became my primary walk-around and all-purpose lens, and since I got it the two other lenses just started collecting dust.
Obviously, 70mm was too short for sports photography and some wildlife and landscape shots; so in March 2005 I decided to extend my lens lineup, and since I'd been so happy with my 24-70, I decided to get more "L" glass: a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. Again, this offers a constant f/2.8 minimum aperture over the entire zoom range, and adds image stabilization so I can shoot at slower shutter speeds. While it's not cheap, this lens should last me a long time - of course the advantage is that I won't have to upgrade again for a long time to come.
I completed my lens collection in July 2005 with a Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 APO DG HSM (not pictured). It provides a distinct advantage in reach over the 70-200mm, and yet due to the large zoom range covered it should prove to be exceedingly versatile. The main reason for getting it is so I won't have another situation like in Yellowstone last year: a good lens with lots of reach makes the difference between getting a close-up shot of a buffalo in Hayden Valley from a safe distance, or just merely having a picture of a small brown spot against a boring green background.
In future travels, I'll mostly use the 24-70mm and 50-500mm lenses on my two camera bodies. This should give me both excellent wide-angle (landscape) coverage, as well as the ability to zoom in a lot, when needed. For sports photography, the 70-200mm is quite obviously still king.