New Glass

Yesterday I extended the modest collection of lenses for my DSLR. I’m still sporting an almost five year old Canon EOS 30D, but getting better lenses has had higher priority than upgrading the body. Lenses tend to be a better investment and add more to the quality of a photo. My first lens was the 17-85mm zoom lens that came with the 30D. With its maximal aperture of 4 it turned out to be suboptimal for the natural light photography that I tend to practice. I replaced the lens with a prime 50mm (F1.4) and a prime 28mm (F1.8). Both very sharp and fast lenses, ideal for portraits and landscapes. I like the large apertures not just for their speed but also for its small depth of field. For the purpose of photographing conferences I extended the collection with a 70-200mm (F2.8) telelens. I have been using this collection for the past three years with occasional good results. But the combination is quite heavy and changing lenses annoying. In particular, for the upcoming mountain vacation, the weight and backpack space occupied was determined too much; only one lens was to be part of the gear.

After some deliberation I chose to purchase the 24-70mm F2.8 zoom lens. It approximates the aperture of the prime lenses and is very sharp for a zoom lens according to reports. Today I took the lens for a test run and I am not disappointed.