Will using just 1 lens limit my growth as a photographer?

ed rader wrote in post #15707791
with the 24-105L you should be okay. way back when my kit was three primes: 28mm, 50mm and 80mm.

Back in my Minolta SRT film days, I had 28mm, 50mm, and 200mm. I managed, somehow.

Preeb wrote in post #15708528
Back in my Minolta SRT film days, I had 28mm, 50mm, and 200mm. I managed, somehow.

whoa huge gap between 50 and 200! how did we manage ?

All depends on what you shoot. I have paired down to 35L and 85mm f1.4. 24-105mm f4 was boring lens for me.

The Dark Knight wrote in post #15707070
But I'm wondering if by not experimenting with more lenses, I'm limiting my progress as a photographer? I'm constantly wanting to improve.

Not really. Think of a lens as a tool. Get the tool that helps your task. As a wildlife photographer a 400mm+ prime lens would be all you need. Get what you need. Of, if you can afford it, get one of everything and giggle every time you look into your camera bag.

To quote one of my favorite professors of all time:

"As a photographer, it's the final product that counts. A good photographer never shows his negatives, nor does he brag about or even mention what gear he used. Bad composition, bad lighting, and a horrible concept remain the same no matter what you use."

Only one lens should be the way to go when you're pursuing to learn. You have to make the photo work with this lens only (not that 24-105 isn't ridiculously versatile), you have to think and not to change lens,

I haven’t been shooting for as long as some of the people here, but I spent my first year shooting on a 50mm 1.8, and learned A LOT in the process.

IMO, it’s a good practice to step backwards sometimes and shoot on minimalistic/lower quality gear. It exposes your creative skills as a photographer and forces you to work on the creative aspects of photography (vs the technical aspects that are usually gear-centric). Ie I’ve been taking a lot of photos on my iPhone lately. Usually random things throughout my day, but it’s forcing me to really work on my composition skills, as I can’t rely on things like IQ, dramatic perspectives, DOF, and controlled lighting to take impressive shots.

klaus00 wrote in post #15715009
Only one lens should be the way to go when you're pursuing to learn. You have to make the photo work with this lens only (not that 24-105 isn't ridiculously versatile), you have to think and not to change lens,

I don't understand this way of thinking. As others have said previously, lenses are but tools. The goal is not to use a lens, but rather to create an image. How do you learn more by limiting yourself to just one lens?

I'll create a fictitious scenario to make my point:
Let's say an aspiring photographer is afield, and sees a particularly attractive patch of sunflowers.

According to the logic presented by Klaus00, they would learn best if they had only one lens, and were "forced" to create images with only this one tool.

Now, let's do it "my way". The photographer has a 100mm macro lens, a "standard" 50mm lens, and a 45mm tilt/shift lens.

The photographer first goes to work with the 100mm macro. He/she uses it for about an hour, looking for all of the ways he/she can photograph the flowers with that particular lens - "group shots" of the entire flower patch, taken from several yards away. Super close-ups, showing fine detail of the vascular tissue in one of the leaves. Mid range images showing the underside of the flower petals with the ambient sunlight illuminating them from the opposite side . . . etc, etc, etc.

After an hour or so, our learning photographer takes the macro lens off of the body and puts the 50mm lens on in it's place. Now they spend an hour or two using the 50mm - again looking for all of the unique ways they can photograph the flowers with that tool.

After they're done with the 50mm lens, they swap it for the tilt/shift, and again go to work for an hour or two, experimenting will the intricacies of that unique lens.

They get home and download all of the photos, and spend many hours studying the images, looking closely at the results obtained by each of the three lenses, and comparing and contrasting them with one another.

So, now answer me this, who was most likely to learn the most - the photographer who used only one lens to photograph the sunflower patch, or the photographer who spent considerable time with all 3 lenses?

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15715363
I don't understand this way of thinking. As others have said previously, lenses are but tools. The goal is not to use a lens, but rather to create an image. How do you learn more by limiting yourself to just one lens?

I'll create a fictitious scenario to make my point:
Let's say an aspiring photographer is afield, and sees a particularly attractive patch of sunflowers.

According to the logic presented by Klaus00, they would learn best if they had only one lens, and were "forced" to create images with only this one tool.

Now, let's do it "my way". The photographer has a 100mm macro lens, a "standard" 50mm lens, and a 45mm tilt/shift lens.

The photographer first goes to work with the 100mm macro. He/she uses it for about an hour, looking for all of the ways he/she can photograph the flowers with that particular lens - "group shots" of the entire flower patch, taken from several yards away. Super close-ups, showing fine detail of the vascular tissue in one of the leaves. Mid range images showing the underside of the flower petals with the ambient sunlight illuminating them from the opposite side . . . etc, etc, etc.

After an hour or so, our learning photographer takes the macro lens off of the body and puts the 50mm lens on in it's place. Now they spend an hour or two using the 50mm - again looking for all of the unique ways they can photograph the flowers with that tool.

After they're done with the 50mm lens, they swap it for the tilt/shift, and again go to work for an hour or two, experimenting will the intricacies of that unique lens.

They get home and download all of the photos, and spend many hours studying the images, looking closely at the results obtained by each of the three lenses, and comparing and contrasting them with one another.

So, now answer me this, who was most likely to learn the most - the photographer who used only one lens to photograph the sunflower patch, or the photographer who spent considerable time with all 3 lenses?

I really like your take on that Tom; it makes sense to me.

For my part, my first two years with a DSLR I only had a single lens: an EF-S 17-55mm. During that time I learned to focus on the basics of composition and exposure - learning how to work with ISO, shutter speed, and aperture to exploit the creative possibilities. Subsequently I made the jump to FF and began acquiring a range of unique lenses. It was great, at that point, to explore all the possibilities of focal lengths armed with the confidence and knowledge of composition and exposure basics.

I'm still learning and growing - hopefully we all are - but the focal-length simplicity of my first two years worked OK for me. But, on the other hand, if I had had unlimited funds, it would have been nice to start with a bag full of lenses.

BTW, I desperately need to "learn" to shoot an EF 600mm f/4L II IS USM to reach my potential, but sadly it's a lesson I can't quite afford...dogone-it!