[FHPhotographer]

I've spent the last several weeks looking for the "perfect" all around lens, or lens combination. One week it was the quest for the best mid-zoom (Tamron 28-75?), the next week the search for the best combination of primes (that's probably the 31 and 77 to go with my 50 1.4?). Or maybe a combination of the two, or something else.

Being eager but ignorant, I've been online hours every day trying to reconcile the photozone MTF ratings with the Pop Photography SQF ratings and Dyxum scores. I poured through the other photography sites, looked at literally thousands of images on flikr and the rest, then watched the Camerlabs video reports and read hundreds of solid empirical posts on this forum and dpreview. Each day I knew more and understood less.

Then I realized I was getting sucked into the perfection paradox and forgetting that, for ordinary amateur photographers like me, good should be good enough. After all, the objective is to have fun, to challenge myself and others to be better, but not to take the world's greatest photographs.

If I wear Air Jordan's I still can't be like Michael. Thousands of dollars in camera equipment isn't going to make me into Ansel Adams.

No point really, just another travelogue from the road we're all on.
FHPhotographer

[deudeu]

There is no such thing as perfection...

[ftpaddict]

Good lesson for all the LBAers.

[k100d]

sooo ... what's your final decision

Truer words may have never been spoken... but it sure pops my bubble of make believe...

Here I thought that my tammy 28-75 was giving me better images of my kids... And my lust for the DA 50-135 is now just a pile of stardust...

And I can kiss my dream of a 77 ltd goodbye like my first wife did to me....


Did I mention you popped my balloon? 8^)

_________________________________________

psss the 28-75 is the perfect lens... for me

[Mike Cash]

There is no such thing as perfection...

That sums it up perfectly.

[Gooshin]

while having the "perfect" lens may not make your photography better

using the "perfect" lens means the only thing left to better is your technique

[figmental1978]

I say buy what I can afford. If you're a mediocre photographer but can afford the best equipment, then go for it. If you're like me and have a limited budget, buy within that range and make the best of it.

[Mechan1k]

What it does take is you to make better captures ... take what you have ... and go out and shoot.

I haven't had internet access for a bit .. and it has been good to get away from the Marketplace on here ... i haven't bought a lens in a long time.

And I have plenty at home to keep me amused ... so what i am going to do is go out ... and use what I have ... and see what I can REALLY do with my current lenses.

Although if and when the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 comes out ... I think i am going to have to get it. LOL

[FHPhotographer]

sooo ... what's your final decision

First have a double Bombay Saphire matrini
Second, nail the list of all the lens candidates to the cat's claw acacia
Third, set fire to the tree (alwasy hated that thing)
Fourth, go back in the house and have another martini...
FHPhotog

[TourDeForce]

First have a double Bombay Saphire matrini
Second, nail the list of all the lens candidates to the cat's claw acacia
Third, set fire to the tree (alwasy hated that thing)
Fourth, go back in the house and have another martini...
FHPhotog

Looks like he got an early start with a few of those...

Sending you a useful PM. Read it tomorrow when the Bombay has been shelved for a while.

[heatherslightbox]

My feeling on this is that I've seen some great pics with budget-minded lenses and some cr@ppy pics with the most expensive lenses. It's not all about the glass, it's what the person behind the lens can do with the glass he or she has.

Heather

[FHPhotographer]

There is no such thing as perfection...

Oh, sure there is, it just isn't attainable.

As Paul Simon, said, "...god makes his plans, the information's not available to the mortal man." It's not perfection, but it's pursuit, that makes men/women mad.

That aside, however, I'd like to think (believe) that there is an "ideal" all-around lens out there for everyone. In reading up on the new Nikon D90 and the 18-105VR "kit" lens, I wonder if that just might be it, at least for Nikon folks,
FHPhotog

[FHPhotographer]

Truer words may have never been spoken... but it sure pops my bubble of make believe...
Here I thought that my tammy 28-75 was giving me better images of my kids... And my lust for the DA 50-135 is now just a pile of stardust...
And I can kiss my dream of a 77 ltd goodbye like my first wife did to me....

Did I mention you popped my balloon? 8^)
_________________________________________

psss the 28-75 is the perfect lens... for me

Ah well, anyone who has lived long enough, and well enough, to have acquired one (or more) exs is better for it.

In any case, sorry about the stardust and dreams, but here's a question to you as a guy who owns both the 28-75 and the 50 f/1.4... how much better is a good prime to a good zoom under the same conditions say both in natural light at 50mm and somewhere around f/4 or so? I'd love to see some something to quantify the accepted wisdom that primes are better,
FHPhotog

[nulla]

while having the "perfect" lens may not make your photography better

using the "perfect" lens means the only thing left to better is your technique

Well said Gooshin


it can also work the opposite way around in having a great technique but not the perfect shot due to using a poor lens or camera



Neither of our theories though do much in holding off LBA