One Lens To Rule Them All

2011-04-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

If you are an avid photographer, you probably read gear review websites, magazine articles about new gear, and you may even pester your local dealer (proGear) and try all the lenses.

Lenses are great. I even think they are more important than the body you hang them off. A good lens should outlast several DSLR bodies. But I could also suggest that lens envy is the common cold of photography. Prolific, mildly debilitating, and so far incurable.

I've have lost whole days of my life wondering if a 24-70 f2.8L would be a good replacement for my 24-105 f4L. One's faster. One's got a greater range. and so on. Or should I get a prime lens to offset any (mythical) shortcomings of my zoom lens.

It's even harder if you are starting out with nothing, and no experience.

Who's reviews can you trust? The magazine dude who gets paid by the manufacturer? The troll on the forum that bashes a lens, but you have never seen any of his photos, and you don't even know if he owned one? The dealer?

My dealer lets me try anything in the store. My own experiences have borne out that his advice is golden. But it might take a year or more to establish a relationship like this - if you even have access to a pro dealer.

As a quick aside - if you trial the lens at a local dealer, then buy it online because it's cheaper - you are a wiener! You are paying for more than the product at a physical store. Try and get after-sales support from B&H from overseas and you'll know what I mean.

I shot an entire trip to England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland on a single camera - a Konica Hexar 35mm Film Camera, with a fixed 35mm lens. I never once failed to get a shot because I couldn't zoom in. I walked closer. I got great portraits, because I walked up to people and asked them.

So it is possible to just use one lens. And not even a zoom lens.

I've shot over 12,000 images this year on just my 24-105 f4L zoom. Yes, it would be great to have a little more length for sports work - but if you are privileged enough to stand in the middle of the field during an event, a great wide end is just as vital.

If you want to be happy with just one lens - it's all in your mind.

I'm not going to change lenses while a horse and rider jump over me in the middle of a rainy, dusty field. So picking 1 good lens was essential. But it was more important to spend the money on quality rather than a quantity of millimeters.

Henri Cartier Bresson, the father of the 'defining moment' shot with mostly a 50mm prime lens.

The big mother zoom f2.8 lenses and high ISO imagers and film stocks are a very recent development. You can live without them as millions of lesser equipped masters of photography have proven.

If you want to be a great photographer, take great photos. Don't let you gear get in the way, because photography is about seeing, not spending.

I would suggest that the 17-55mm kit lens that Canon adds as a lens cap to most new DSLRs is actually a very capable lens. Far sharper than most lenses (prime or zoom) that preceded it in the 200+ years of photography's history.

Or, if you really like the discipline of a prime (and it's a great way to learn) get the sub $200 50mm f1.8. The 'nifty fifty' more than holds it's own in the most crowded category of standard lenses.

I chose the Canon 24-105 f4 L firstly because of it's outstanding image quality, and secondly, because it covered a useful range. Nothing truly awe inspiring like a 10mm or a 400mm - but something I could leave on the camera and get on with shooting.

Will I buy more lenses? Yes. But I will buy the best money can buy, because I will get longevity out of them. I will never have to panic every time a new lens comes out that 'might' best my own collection.

And I will buy from genuine needs that are determined by my clients, not my gear lust.

I've been looking for something a bit longer for sports and some of my portrait work. Rather than read 300 reviews on 20 lenses, I simply asked a few pros I trust, what's the best (money is no object) and they all pointed to the same lens.

At the top of the food chain is usually only 1 or to 2 easy choices. That saves you a lot of mucking about. But until then, use the lens you have. No excuses.

Sometimes the best photographs are taken

2009-02-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

There are two films I would describe as 'hey that's the story of my life'. Star Wars is not one of them.

A long time ago (in a country much closer these days) God told me I would do more and see more than Luke Skywalker could ever imagine. That's the thing about God. He speaks your language. He knows your heart, and your desires - and he uses those things to communicate more effectively and intimately. It was truly a life changing word - because shortly after that love letter/promise from God, 4 complete strangers walked into the house and prophetically said the same thing (in different words, but I could clearly see what He was up to). Within a year I was married to my first love and traveling the world as a missionary, having one of the best times of my life.

No. The two films I would like to nominate are "Pump Up The Volume" with Christian Slater (you kinda need to substitute the 'net for radio) and "The Photographer".

Since you have more than likely never seen it - a photographer who was at the top of his craft loses the spark and is about to lose it all. In a seedy downtown bar, he finds 10 brilliant photos on the floor and decides to submit them as his own. Until they are stolen. And so begins a long journey into the night to recover what was taken. What he finds instead, of course, is his soul.

I've been enjoying what Douglas Adams once described as 'the long dark tea-time of the soul.' Being a bit more proactive and optimistic (yes, Mr. Badger is an optimist) I've seen the recent challenges (fires, gear amputation, Cola rehab, intercontinental relocation) as leading to something brilliant.

While wandering the streets I too have had that growing realisation of the less I have, the more I have to depend on God. This is a wonderful (in an exhilarating bungee jumping vibe) thing.

'If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.' It's not your plans intention I think He chuckles over, it's the scale. We are like the microscopic battle fleet that invaded earth and was swallowed by a small dog. We just don't get the scale of what's going on around us.

So while I've been out looking to fulfill those images of my destiny in my mind, God has steadily been steering me into a position of total dependence. The darker it gets, the more I need Him.

Now He is all I have - and the payoff has begun. I finalised my tiny plans last night, and this morning began to feel the remorse of planning something so finite, so limited by my resources and abilities. But because I decided to start, He enabled.

The phone rang, and something a million times bigger than me was on the other end. Something that would force me to think on a much larger scale and enable a much greater work. As long as I had to courage to just say yes. If they called, then God must have told them I was somehow capable of doing the job.

If I had not shed myself of my low level affordable equipment and business plan...I wouldn't be out in the open looking for something better. Looking for something God sized, and totally free to accept it.

Those pictures in my head - those images of my destiny, those fragmentary plans - they were always there, they were just flashes of the journey, and as I move forward, they just happen all on their own. I just have to take the journey.

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One Lens To Rule Them All

Sometimes the best photographs are taken