Hi everyone, I'm not a pro or anything like that-- I have a blog where I cover events and so I always have a camera handy to get some content.One thing I experience a lot is people with the big rocket launcher sized lenses making fun of my Nikon D5100 with my kit lens (55mm). I photograph a lot of food and things like market stalls up close, or the cooking action at events. I prefer to get up close while I can as the events can be crowded and I find my kit lens does the job fine for what I need to do. But yeah, the other people taking photos (often in an official capacity) good naturedly give me attitude about why I'm using the baby lens! This past weekend I went to an event that had a fashion parade (i.e. models walking down a runway). I was on the media-only platform and there were pros there with their big pro setups and bazooka lenses. And there's me, no tripod and electing to use my 55mm lens (I was in a great position to take pics luckily). A couple of the photographers looked at me with scorn (grrr!). But I kept the faith I'm very happy with how my pics turned out with my kit lens. I was close enough to be able to photograph the whole model, or zoom in on a feature like shoes or a dress bodice for more detail. People have asked if they can keep my photos which makes me happy. Then I saw a photo album of 100+ images taken by the photographer who was snooty towards me (he had the big bazooka on the tripod)... forgive the boast but I didn't like his photos one bit and I've had people tell me they prefer the pics I took than the pro's pics. I know it's not about a bigger, better camera getting you better shots. But why do people look down their noses at others who aren't using a bigass lens? Another event I was at, I again used my kit lens and got friendly bad attitude from others walking around with huge lenses. Then we all had our photos put in albums online and mine all got the most votes. I don't like using my 200mm lens when there's a crowd because I find I have to stand back more and people walk in front of me, so I prefer the kit lens where I can literally get right up to the stall, poke my head around a corner and take some nice pics! I don't intend on changing what I do, but wanted to know if there's some kind of unspoken rule that you can spot an amateur by the size of their lens. Yes I'm an amateur but my cousin is a very famous photographer and he tells me "use what makes you happy and gets you the result you were going for". * Also could someone please tell me why my post displays as one continuous paragraph? I'm typing it as separate paragraphs but it's getting published as one long paragraph... sorry! I've looked at settings but can't work it out.