True or False ??

iceman55

Senior Member
Does having a pro lens turn your pictures from good to great ?? most professional photographers always advise you to buy the best lens you can. do you think that a $500 lens will produce the same results as a $2k lens with the same camera & the same settings ??
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
Right, it is the photographer that decides what to shoot, from what angle and crop, and time of day, and choosing which lens was appropriate, etc. etc.

The best old saying though, is that to take pictures of beautiful things, then stand in front of beautiful things. :)
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Right, it is the photographer that decides what to shoot, from what angle and crop, and time of day, and choosing which lens was appropriate, etc. etc.

The best old saying though, is that to take pictures of beautiful things, then stand in front of beautiful things. :)
The main reason I don't take selfies.;)
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
The quality of glass is very important. Granted, people can get awesome images from lenses that aren't particularly expensive, but if you have money set aside, quality glass will really be beneficial.

Back around 1997, I took a local photography class that centered around printing images in a darkroom. There were around 7 of us in the class, and someone suggested we do a field trip. So one Saturday, we drove about an hour away and walked together shooting similar images. This one guy recently upgraded his Canon 35mm to a $1,000 Canon body, but he kept the same lenses he'd been using. When we printed out our photos, I remember him going from person to person to compare images with his own.

I was floored to see his images weren't any better than they were with his lesser expensive Canon body and could see the disappointment on his face (keep in mind we didn't do any photo editing other than dodging and burning in the darkroom). That's when I really learned the importance of good glass. Great glass with a less than great body should yield better results than a great body with less than great glass. And if lenses are taken care of, in general they should last longer than camera bodies. The majority of people tend to upgrade bodies more frequently than glass--providing they have decent lenses.
 

singlerosa_RIP

Senior Member
Does having a pro lens turn your pictures from good to great ?? most professional photographers always advise you to buy the best lens you can. do you think that a $500 lens will produce the same results as a $2k lens with the same camera & the same settings ??

Everything else being equal, give me the $2K lens. I've had cheap and expensive lenses, better glass makes a difference.
 
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cbay

Senior Member
Was using my 18-140 for landscapes prior to getting the Tokina 11-20 and wondered if it would be sharper and if it would matter. Now that i have the Tokina i can appreciate the quality, especially with the foreground in my shots. There is a noticeable difference in sharpness between the two. It helps with the foreground with wide angle effect. If just for walk about type photos maybe not so much. The Tamron 150-600 would drive me nuts if it wasn't sharp, especially with birds.
 

greepo

Senior Member
No doubt the better glass makes a difference. Those who say otherwise are likely purists who want to make a point that the photographer makes all the difference. Sure, you have to know what you're doing whatever the gear but give me the expensive glass any day of the week. It's a no-brainer, if you have the coin.


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I actually think it takes all three. 1st a photographer that knows what they are doing. 2nd is good glass 3rd you do have to have a good body to put it all together. The body can limit what you are able to do though so at some point you have to upgrade but I think you need to push the limit of the equipment you have before you upgrade anything.


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BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Does having a pro lens turn your pictures from good to great ?? most professional photographers always advise you to buy the best lens you can. do you think that a $500 lens will produce the same results as a $2k lens with the same camera & the same settings ??

There's a guitar player and producer out there that you've probably heard but may have never heard of named Buddy Miller. Buddy plays these old plastic guitars from an Italian company called Wandre. They're often held together expertly by tape and glue thanks to a great guitar tech that works for him full time. Until people saw Buddy playing them they could be had for next to nothing, then they became a "thing". Buddy's the older guy with the funky hat in this video. Do you think that it would have been better with a vintage Les Paul or perhaps a PRS Artist?


Here's my point, before anyone misses it - there are tools for a job, and there are ways to get things done. A bad picture is a bad picture no matter what you use to shoot it - no matter how much you polish a turd it's still a turd. Every piece of equipment has its own characteristics and these can be used to your advantage as well as your detriment. A photograph is not great because it's tack sharp, a photograph is great because it says something as well as shows something. You can use cheap, cloudy glass to take a shot of a lifetime if your mind's eye can find it before you squeeze the shutter. You can also produce utter rubbish with glass costing 5 figures. Both with the same camera body.

Pro glass, instead of what you have, will only make a difference in your photography when you notice specifically why the glass you currently have isn't cutting it. Pro glass can also open your eyes to those shortcomings after you've shot with it. But when all other things are equal, pro glass will do nothing more than possibly impress pixel peepers and folks who want to find a reason to say the lens is better, but not the photograph.
 

greepo

Senior Member
Of course good photography is all about the composition, the moment, the use of light etc etc. That said, across all genres of photography, as a viewer, I'd much rather be looking at work produced with pro glass as opposed to anything else. And there are a number of genres that almost require it to produce great images - macro, avian, Astro, for example.


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Whiskeyman

Senior Member
There is a photography quote that goes something like this:

"Amateurs think about equipment. Pros think about money. Masters think about light."

Say that three times, fast or slow, and then think about what it means.

Then again, I like being the weak link in my photographic equation....:cool:

WM
 
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