Canon lenses.. If you could do it all again what would you do different?

With the knowledge you have now... And you had the chance to start from scratch which lenses would you not buy and for what reasons and which lenses would you have bought instead or maybe already did buy

I would do things hugely differently. I moved to Canon & DLSR about 4 years ago. At that time I bought new, cheap lenses. I ended up selling them for a loss. Once I started buying good glass used, I could experiment at almost no cost. I bought a used 135L for $780 and sold it a year later for $835. I also had a 200 2.8L that I bought for $720 and sold for $700. I used those lenses for a year for less than the cost of a three-day rental.

Now that I know what I want, and why, before I buy, I generally buy used or refurbished. Two lenses I did buy new were the 100-400L and the 15-85. I know I'll never be able to afford a better/more expensive long lens than the 100-400, and the 15-85 was going to be my everyday lens, so I wanted the one-year warranty. (Refurb was only 90 days then.)

The least costly way to purchase lenses is to buy good glass used. It holds its value better than consumer grade glass. I have also just about given up on primes. I've had 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm macro, 135mm and 200mm primes. Zooms are less expensive. I find my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 does quite nicely for the bottom half of that range, and my Sigma 70-200 2.8 OS does the top half. About the only prime I would even have on my radar is the EF 24mm f/1.4 II. I find the price prohibitive, though.

YashicaFX2 wrote in post #16384381
I have also just about given up on primes. I've had 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm macro, 135mm and 200mm primes. Zooms are less expensive.

You have given up on primes due to cost only ??

Nick_Reading.UK wrote in post #16384389
You have given up on primes due to cost only ??

No, but cost and weight are both significant factors. My 28-75 f/2.8 can take the place of 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm and 85mm primes. Realistically, it is carry one zoom or carry three primes. Same goes for the 70-200 2.8. It is carry one (large heavy) lens, or an 85, 135 & 200. The 70-200 is cheaper and lighter than the three primes.

I am also not in love with the craze for razor thin DOF. With WA lenses you aren't going to get it anyway. The point of the 24mm f/1.4 is light-gathering ability, not DOF. At the other end of the spectrum, portraits at 135-200mm using f/2.8 can't get a whole face in focus. Why go wider? That is a matter of preference and style. I just prefer to use f/5.6 to f/8 and a distant background for that type of shot. I like the whole face, hair and everything, to be in focus.

Lastly, it is a convenience thing. If I know what to expect, I can generally get by with either the 15-85, or the 70-200. That means I don't have to carry a bag, or extra lenses, and be changing lenses as conditions change. If I know I am going to need two lenses, I find it easier to carry two bodies. I have always been able to change cameras quicker than I could change lenses. And again, only two zooms will cover 98% of what I shoot.

I would like to have an EF 24mm f/1.4II, and a 600mm f/4 IS USM. Those are primes that I think I could use. Due to the cost, I probably never have to worry about owning either of them.

The lens I most regred getting is the 35mm. I used it a few days, than stopped and ended up selling it almost completely new.

Other than that, I'm debating with myself about the 100L.
I only got the 85 and 135 recently, so now I don't have much use for the 100, and I want to get the 180 for a while now. So if I could do things again, I would have gotten the 180 and 85 instead of the 100. But use and price, the 100 really has no competition really, so when I got it back than, it was a really smart decision to buy it.

Ditto. I had my 35 2 less than 2 weeks. It did nothing for me. Speed wasn't the issue; it wasn't wide enough. Also tried the 24 2.8 IS. Nice, but too expensive, and again, not wide enough. I'll stick to the 10-22 on my 60D. THAT is wide.

what i regret is not going canon at all in the beginning. my first lens was a tamron 17-50 and it is a terrible lens. poor focus acuracy, soft on the edges, flares up badly when there is back lighting and just about all the bad things you can imagine. this is the lens i had to learn with. was tearing my hair out with frustration as to why my images were always poorly focused, soft ect. sent it in for callibration 3 times, exchanged it twice and was told by everyone i asked for help that the blurry images was photographer error and not the camera or lens. i was labelled a pixel peeper. a year later i gave up and quit photography due to trash images coming out of the camera. thought it was me that was just incapable of learning photography. when i was in the process of selling off my camera, i the sales guy tested my body with his 24-70 canon lens. once i saw what the image looked like, i took my camera back, dumped the tamron lens and never looked back. i now use a canon 24-70 and 70-200 and am getting pictures with iq that never ceases to make my jaw drop when editing on the pc. and to think i almost quit because of bad glass

Instead of buying a 300mm f2.8 IS from Kerso for £2500 five years ago, I wish I'd bought 50 of them - then sold them for £3000 - £3500 each.

I'd probably have the same gear as I do now. Most of the changes I have made were because better gear became available.

I'm guessing that my next big purchase will be a high MP body (36-42 MP?)

I had been shooting other camera systems for at least 25 years before switching to Canon EF/EOS in 2001, so I had a pretty good idea what I wanted and got it from the start.

Of the four lenses I ordered along with a pair of EOS-3s way back then, I still have three of them. I've added a number of other lenses since (while camera bodies have come and gone and I converted from film to digital). And in twelve years have actually only swapped out one lens, when I converted to crop sensor digital in 2004 and didn't have a wide enough lens.

Going for L lenses instead of cheaper alternatives

I wouldn't change anything if I had to do it over again. I bought what I felt I needed based on what was available in the market and more importantly what was in my wallet at the time.

However in an unrealistic situation where I had all the money that I spent in gear in my wallet now and was starting over, I could probably get by with the 5D3, 24-70 II, 70-200 II and 100L. All of which were not even available when I moved to digital from film.

Eyal wrote in post #16384439
The lens I most regred getting is the 35mm. I used it a few days, than stopped and ended up selling it almost completely new.

Why did you not like the 35mm ??

I am thinking of getting a 35mm 2.0 IS for portraits/weddings and plan to also get the 24-70mm 2.8 after that and oneday a 85mm 1.8. Should I be thinking of other options. Will the high ISO possibilities of my mk3 mean the 24-70 will be enough??

Wish I'd gone directly to 6D instead of the intermediate step of the 60D when I upgraded from the T1i. I took the 60D on my honeymoon and while it's a very good camera, with some features that I sorely miss on the 6D, the quality of the 6D's output is vastly superior. I couldn't have afforded it at the time, though.

I've been very happy with my lens choices. I've done some flipping but that has been a learning process and I don't regret it.

I probably would not buy the EF 50/1.4 and other EF lenses again, but only old manual lenses (or some AF lenses for tinkering with parts of them). But I have to admit, for the crop camera manual focus is not that easy.

I would not buy the Samyang 14 again. Or open it directly to fasten and glue the screws and handle it with extreme care like a baby.
I would not buy some of the old manual lenses again, probably not the Canon FD 24/1.4L and 85/1.2L. And I would buy Canon FD long telephoto lenses and other lenses some years earlier, they were a bit cheaper back then.

Yeah, I like the EF 300/2.8 investment idea, but instead of this expensive lens I would have bought 2010 some Meyer Trioplan 100lenses, back then for ~60 Euro each. Now the sell for >240 Euro.