Lens before body or body before lens?

[grego]

(whoops, I meant for the Talk About Photography section, but I guess it can work here too-Thanks to whoever moved it).

I figure I should pose this question.

I recently made it to UCLA's newspaper. So I'm back in the photo journalism thing. I'm sure i will do it for a while, and as I build my setup, I have to make some choices for what comes next.

Of course I will do everything as a photo journalist from sports to the boring press conferences to envirnomental portraits, etc. etc.

The Body:
I have a 10D, and the 20D would be next because I just don't have the funds for the 1DMKII without driving myself completely broke. But the 20D is that compromise for low noise at high ISO, and speed(fps, buffer, af). Oh and of course having two bodies, which is what a photo journalist should at least have. The one thing I will likely face is having to shoot jpg's, and not in RAW form, so I know the buffer isn't as big a deal as it would be with RAW, but still. I'l have to make a good argument for my use of RAW, and I'm sure somehow I'll get my way. :lol:

The Lens:
Well, there's actually two, the additional one being the 85 1.8 for sports like volleyball, but that's on the further back burner. What is on the list is that 16-35 mm f/2.8L. A photo journalists best friend, the wide angle. I guess I decided to go with the tele, 70-200 IS first. Now I need the other end of it, because the midrange isn't as important as these two, and I already have a 50 1.4 for the sports like basketball, on the baseline(and if i do get two bodies, i can use it on one body). I have a 19-35, but on a 1.6 crop, it doesn't get too wide and it's also not 2.8. I do know if I got the lens, i'd be using it a lot, making it worth while, just like my 70-200.

And then some day probably the Sigma 120-300 to get myself close to a 300 2.8 prime(much cheaper though).

So what direction do you suggest? I like to hear your comments and opinions, and if you have time, your reasoning behind it. I know everyone is going to think different, but I keep asking people, and some pros too.

Regardless if I don't buy for a while, I'm defintely be photographing regardless. Guess in the meantime, i'll have to use Nikon as the spare body and maybe use it for the wide because they have a 17-35 2.8 on a 1.5 crop.

Thanks everyone,

Greg

[Andy_T]

First of all, congratulations on your new position :D

Just some thoughts ...

- Why do you have to argue RAW vs. JPG? If you deliver them JPG images in time (that you converted from your RAW images before), what's the deal?

- I didn't know that the 'photo journalists best friend' was the wide angle lens. So I learned something from this thread :D
But what discerning value does an image shot at 16/2.8 have as opposed to, say, 17/4.0? Keep in mind that DOF on f/2.8 isn't exactly deep ... so you might very well end up shooting at f/5.6 to get an overall sharp image anyway. And you save half the money on the 17-40/4.0 for that one f-stop (image quality is virtually the same, according to all I've heard about the 2 lenses).

- And I certainly hope that you don't plan to buy a second system just because they have one lens at the moment that's cheaper than the Canon counterpart...

Best regards,
Andy

[grego]

Well, because its a daily paper, RAW isn't as quick as JPG. Also, they have space issues on the hard drives. That's part of it. They told me that if its really dire. I'll see. I'm really going to make sure for that.

In photo journalism, I usually use 2.8. I know its shallow, but you get put in a lot of lower light situations, like the first and only thing I've shot for the paper, although it was a Nikon, I had to use it wide open because the room was so dark. The 17-40 to me, would just be a waste of money in the sense, that I spent like half, but then I'm not getting everything I should.

And the second system is just something I should have eventually. A 20D/10D combo would do pretty well though. That's why. Thanks Andy for your thoughts though.