What lens changed your pictures?

I've been stricken by a bit of G.A.S. recently and part of my cure is sending the 85L and 35L back. It's a great lens, truly great and easily one of Canon's best. Really though, it's amazing how good the 85mm 1.8 is when used side by side with the 85L. The 35L is great, but you know, a 50mm 1.4 is pretty damn good too. Plus, on a scale of 1-100, I'm probably a 49 in terms of quality of photography, but I do strive to be the best

Lately I've been browsing the lens sample thread just to kill time, think about maybe what to get next when I noticed a couple things. There's a good chunk of people who will post a sample pic and how it's the best lens since sliced bread. Then you look at their siggy and it's long gone. Or you'll find examples in one thread and find great examples and noticed people jumped ship from that lens to another usually more expensive lens and the pictures are equally bad, or equally good, but hardly any that are groundbreakingly better! The 50mm 1.4 to 35L is a good example of this.

Addmittedly, there are lenses out there that are duds, crap, soft and limp. These deserve to go by the wayside. Some people truly need the extra stop or two of light. What I want to know is, what lens changed the way you shoot, inspired you to shoot better, or made your pictures look better.

Well, when i bought the 10-22 it surely changed the way i look at photography.

I purchased it like a true beginner. Just, you know, to get it all in... I started to take a good look at my images and concluded that the things i want in, looked realy tiny :P and my foregrounds and/or skies made up the most part of the picture.

I started to learn that wide angles aren't to get it all in the frame... And my use of the lens and my photography changed.

The 50 f1.8 taught me what depth of field was and how to use it to my advantage. It taught me how to focus and recompose, which changed the whole ball game.

It also introduced me into fast, big aperture lenses, which in turn introduced me to large credit card payments.

The MP-E Macro lens.

All of my lenses.

Each lens sees or allows you to see the world in a different way.

PS: The only lens I have sold was the 10-22 and that was because I went to a FF. Replaced with the 17-40

Jethro790 wrote in post #9109259
The 50 f1.8 taught me what depth of field was and how to use it to my advantage. It taught me how to focus and recompose, which changed the whole ball game.

It also introduced me into fast, big aperture lenses, which in turn introduced me to large credit card payments.

its called a gateway drug...

+1 On the 50 1.8.

I kind of miss manual focus lenses as well.

For me, personally it wasn't a particular brand or focal lenght, it was my first 'fast' lens. Before going canon I was shooting with a system of lenses that were relatively slow, 2.8 to 3.5 type of largest apertures. It wasn't until I got my first 50/1.4 did I recognize the background and foreground...or better yet, the lack of them. I had never before created an image with such isolation of the subjects. I found a tool that had never before been available to me; my type of photography craved that aspect, and I soon became a speedfreak, as they say.

Good question Mr C.

Mr. Clean wrote in post #9109162
I've been stricken by a bit of G.A.S. recently and part of my cure is sending the 85L and 35L back. It's a great lens, truly great and easily one of Canon's best. Really though, it's amazing how good the 85mm 1.8 is when used side by side with the 85L. The 35L is great, but you know, a 50mm 1.4 is pretty damn good too. Plus, on a scale of 1-100, I'm probably a 49 in terms of quality of photography, but I do strive to be the best

Lately I've been browsing the lens sample thread just to kill time, think about maybe what to get next when I noticed a couple things. There's a good chunk of people who will post a sample pic and how it's the best lens since sliced bread. Then you look at their siggy and it's long gone. Or you'll find examples in one thread and find great examples and noticed people jumped ship from that lens to another usually more expensive lens and the pictures are equally bad, or equally good, but hardly any that are groundbreakingly better! The 50mm 1.4 to 35L is a good example of this.

Addmittedly, there are lenses out there that are duds, crap, soft and limp. These deserve to go by the wayside. Some people truly need the extra stop or two of light. What I want to know is, what lens changed the way you shoot, inspired you to shoot better, or made your pictures look better.

good post Mike. when all is said and done you are right. it's not the pots and pans that make the top chef .

ed rader

muusers wrote in post #9109295
its called a gateway drug...

On top of that, you had no idea that "L" glass automagically makes you a pro photographer!

Joe

17-55.

when I first got that lens, I knew I could now happily drop my FD primes-only setup and confidently switch 100% to digital and zooms.

(I had the 24-70 before the 17-55 and it just did not cut it)

picturecrazy wrote in post #9109419
(I had the 24-70 before the 17-55 and it just did not cut it)

Which is ironic since the 24-70 is my butter. Funny how that "gear" thing works, eh? One person's "OMG! Niiice!" is another person's "WTF? That sucked."

cdifoto wrote in post #9109443
Which is ironic since the 24-70 is my butter. Funny how that "gear" thing works, eh? One person's "OMG! Niiice!" is another person's "WTF? That sucked."

yeah, tell me about it. I like the lenses people think are inferior, and the awesome expensive L primes make me go, "meh..." LOL.

Jethro790 wrote in post #9109259
...It also introduced me into fast, big aperture lenses, which in turn introduced me to large credit card payments.

And that's the scariest thing. Fast glass, fast bodies, nothing is cheap and people will get buried buying lenses and bodies they can't afford to try to get their pictures to look like other photographers pictures when in reality, it will almost never pay back and some will always be striving for that piece of gear that makes their pictures when it's just not ever going to happen.

joe_it wrote in post #9109389
On top of that, you had no idea that "L" glass automagically makes you a pro photographer!

Joe

Huh What?