How do you handle the 5% of situations when you may need a lens?

I noticed a number of you guys have a minimal amount of equipment. Something I see often may be something like a 7D, 17-55 f/2.8, and 85mm 1.8. A body, 2 lens. I'm curious what you guys do when you need to shoot something that your equipment may not cover. For example you go to a pro baseball game or something. Do you rent? Make do with the 85mm and go for wider more creative shots?

Rent, sometimes when I need a a wide angle but just have a 35mm+ lens on me I'll just take lots of pictures and stitch them together.

This also comes in handy when I want the medium format look but I can't afford a $15,000-$50,000 MF digital system. You can use the brenezier method to mimic it.

I pretty much just buy the lens I want/need to cover what I am trying to shoot. I tend to use my tax returns towards gear, but when I changed jobs a couple years ago I ended up with a good amount to spend and basically doubled my gear. I figure that renting a lens for a year would cost however much, but buying a used lens, 300mm f/4L IS for $850 and using it for as long as I like then selling or trading to for something else keeps me at the same cost give or take a little bit. The "rental" fee never goes up or down by to much.

When I find a lens limiting me, such as the 300mm f/4L IS, I will wait until I can upgrade and then sell it. I bought the 400mm DO and am now getting rid of the 300mm. Such is the case with other lenses. I just change around my kit usually by trading. I went from 300mm to 24mm TS mk1, got the 24mm f/1.4 mk2 so traded the 24mm TS for another 300mm, then got the 400mm and am selling the 300mm...... again.

Generally people who don't have lens, simply don't take photos when they lack the gear needed, especially when it comes to telephoto. Or you put your birds in the freezer first.

Make do with what I have. What else?

I don't rent. Unless the client can be billed for the rental (and so far I haven't had any clients willing to do so), renting is just too prohibitive. Heck, when a rental can be 1/3 the price of the lens brand new, I would rather buy the lens in question.

I think that the notion that a photographer has to have a certain range covered without gaps (24-200, 17-400, whatever) is pretty much nonsense. After trial and error, I found that I'm just not terribly interested in the telephoto range. This was early on in my days at POTN, where gear lust can run rampant, so of course I thought that there just might be something wrong with me... but the love of the long lens still never took hold and I embraced it.

For a while, when I worked almost literally around the corner from Adorama, I would rent a long lens if I was going to the zoo or something, but even that desire faded. For something like a baseball game? Forget it - I'm there to be there, eating peanuts and cracker-jack, hot dogs and too-expensive beers. There nothing wrong with getting satisfaction out of a great shot of the batter making contact with the ball, but I get more satisfaction soaking in atmosphere and being a part of the crowd.

I move my feet or get creative. My lenses fit in my style of things I like to shoot so I am never lacking so much that a few steps can't fix.

Foot zoom is a myth. Moving is not the same as changing lenses.

I've rented a 400 f/2.8L IS a couple of times when I shot some Big Ten college football games from the sidelines.
Presently I can cover 16-1000mm with only a few gaps.

I ask for 95% from my wife of why I need this new lens....ha ha ha

The Dark Knight wrote in post #16697593
I noticed a number of you guys have a minimal amount of equipment. Something I see often may be something like a 7D, 17-55 f/2.8, and 85mm 1.8. A body, 2 lens. I'm curious what you guys do when you need to shoot something that your equipment may not cover. For example you go to a pro baseball game or something. Do you rent? Make do with the 85mm and go for wider more creative shots?

I just get a beer, hot dog and watch the game.

Unless you're a pro, you don't need to cover that 5%. Or you can just try to work with what you have.

Personally, I don't bring photo gear to concerts etc. I'm there to enjoy the event, not to make photo's.

vengence wrote in post #16697795
Generally people who don't have lens, simply don't take photos when they lack the gear needed

I would think that this is true of 99% of the people on here, 99% of the time.

If I don't have the FL for it, then I don't...it's not like I'm required to have all the available FL's

I guess a corollary question would be: do you carry ALL your lenses with you to every assignment or every time you go out to shoot, just in case you might need a particular focal length?