Originally posted by cali92rs In my defense, the title of this thread includes tight budget. I am not poor by any means, but My definition of a tight budget for something related to a hobby would not be $500+ and I made this quote before he stated how much money he was willing to spend.
Oh I know, he only said he had 500 pounds to spend later in the thread. So everybody else was trying to help with lower budget options.
Though if one has a very low budget, my suggestion is the Tokina 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 (which is not the same as the Cosina/Vivitar/Phoenix/Voigtlander, which isn't a bad lens either, but different). After feeling I was getting uninspired, "meh" results from the 18-55 kit lens (AL II in my case), I got this Tokina and while it is soft wide open, it's a very good lens at f8-f11. Is it as good as the DA 15 or the 12-24, or the Sigma 10-20? Of course not, and it's longer as well. But considering I paid 98 bucks for mine, and it's usually around 100 bucks or so, I can't complain at all. Usually if the picture doesn't come out right, it's my fault and not the lens.
This is a boring picture because I'm a boring photographer at this point, but the lens did its job: